The hometown hero’s final rodeo.

Can he save his best friend?

He just has to get him on the plane headed East.

One more drink won’t hurt.

I. FIREWORKS

I never expected to hold my first gun in Idaho.

It was heavier and colder than I dreamt it would be. The moonlight caught my hand. I could see my tendons shifting as I caressed the barrel. I traced the underside along its curve and to the magazine. They designed it to be held one way and I resisted the urge to do so.

We were in a motel parking lot in Coeur d’Alene.

Red. White. Blue. The colors ran like wet ink. They bled into the dark water of the night sky. The air smelled of smoke. It rattled with pops and sizzles. In the street behind us, there were honks and hollering, beer bottles being smashed. An upside-down lawn chair was strewn in the bushes beside our parked cars. The balconies above us were empty. Only silhouettes gliding behind the curtains, backlit.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

In front of me were two men with buzz cuts swinging at one another, and two curly haired men trying to keep them apart. When the gun was wrestled away from the shortest one, it was handed to me, and I was instructed to keep it from everyone. This was because I was their guest of honor.

I had just met three of the four men 48 hours ago. They were two duos of best friends.

The taller combatant was pinned down by the one man I did know. The shorter one escaped the restraint of his own detainer and instead of taking advantage of his enemy lying on the ground—he turned and ran towards me.

I hopped on to the open bed of a truck, one leg springing up the other. I did not trust my hands with anything but handling their cargo.

“Give ME my FUCKING GUN BACK!”

I raised the gun high over my head as he tried to climb up. Then I kicked him square in his spit covered jaw.

A new round of fireworks began. I knew I could make the shot blend in with the pops. Or I could wait until the sizzle and make it stand out. Just once.

After all—they designed it to be used one way: to give final answers.

But they didn’t tell you which questions to use it for.

II. ARRIVALS

Leo was my host. He picked me up from Seattle’s airport two days before.

The car was rattling with hi hats and bass as I turned towards it, still putting my sweater on. I peeked in the window and felt the contagion of his grin spreading on my own face. I tossed my bag in the back seat and sat in the passenger seat, twisting to slap his back as he slapped mine. He drummed his fingers on the steering wheel and we both put our visors down as the off ramp took us straight into the morning sun.

We had met two years before, in Washington D.C. I trained him to take over my role. We were lobbying interns for a big tech company. Which meant we were check runners. My training consisted of telling him where to sit in the office at what time, so that you could pretend to do work without anyone looking over your shoulder. And how to fill our 30 second slot in the weekly team meeting.

Once a day we would be handed envelopes with addresses, and we would stretch out these drop offs into several hour-long excursions through the swamp. By the time we made it back, most of our colleagues were long gone. They had done their time in public service.

Leo came in with a Latino last name, upright posture, a prominent dimple on the right, and wire rimmed glasses. In other words, I was looking at a mirror.

On his first day, he had on a crisp white dress shirt, and an immaculately knotted tie (dark blue with little golden diamonds). He slotted in the desk next to me and began peppering me with questions, the sweat tracing a clean line down his sideburns. His long fingers alternated between stroking the tip of his tie upwards, and then patting it down. I noticed his thumb bent inhumanly backwards, and he explained it as a football injury.

It took three days before I got him to graduate to polos. At drinks after the first week, we laughed at how our boss, despite being Colombian, looked visibly strained when we spoke Spanish to him. Neither of us found it strange that we would interrupt our conversations to call our long distance girlfriends.

My Political Science friends were busy that summer, slaving away at campaigns, legislative work, and nonprofits. Some were unpaid. Even the well compensated made a fraction of my salary. I’d undo their work everyday—brandishing an envelope from my back pocket and handing it wordlessly to a receptionist chewing gum and drawing on post-its.

While I wrote poems (turning my brightness down) or jammed around in a design file with my computer science best friend (turning my brightness up) Leo researched the various causes our company was advocating for.

He would peel back the layers of bills and hearings and press releases and gossip. It stung me to see his face fall as he learned time and time again that we were on the wrong side. When he would mutter to himself, I would tell him that he should study the how. How to win.

“Money?”

“Money.”

“But what’s the point of money, if you’re using it to ruin everyone’s lives?”

“Well, let’s just get it and spend it on the right things.”

We were only together for three weeks, as I had to return for my senior year. He took a semester off his junior year to stay through the winter.

Before I handed in my laptop, I wrote down the email of the boss—everyone’s boss, the guy who started the whole thing. I met him at the beginning of the summer, when we were prepping him for his Congressional hearing. He had a tattoo of a queen chess piece on his forearm, a beard that entered the room before him, ate only a steamed vegetable plate once a day, walked two hours to work, and went on a month long no electronics/no speaking retreat in Southeast Asia. He was worth the GDP of several small countries.

When we took a break from the murderboard, everyone dispersed to go to the bathroom or get snacks. I walked up to him to ask him about his time at NYU. I could feel the eyes of the room on my back but he answered me as if I was the only one around. His eyes would dart back and forth, too alive to stay put. We discovered that we lived in the same freshman year dorm.

Years later he would be my first big investor. All my check carrying was boomeranged back to me. His cut arrived by messenger. He did not trust any financial tool that was not his own. How he ran two companies at once I never knew, as I almost was driven to insanity by running one.

Leo and I grew our friendship through text but did not see one another again for another year and a half. We were both single by then. I appreciated that he didn’t ask me to elaborate, and I extended him the same courtesy. He did explain to me that he finally made the switch over to contacts the month before.

We would reunite in Miami. He was celebrating his graduation. A spot in a Chicago law school awaited him in the fall. I was celebrating finally quitting my job. My computer science best friend and I decided to go for it. If we knew what awaited us we probably never would have jumped off the cliff, but only the young have the courage to put their wings to the test.

The Miami weekend was well…a Miami weekend. It was worth the price.

Then two weeks later, we reunited once more, this time in Austin.

While on a rooftop in Sixth Street, we heard pops from the crowd below. Thinking it was a motorcycle backfiring, or fireworks, we continued to play beer pong. Our dental student friend who lived in Baltimore ran for the edge of the roof.

“Those were gun shots.”

“Shut the fuck up Adrian. Those weren’t gun shots.”

They were gun shots.

The second round of pops and the screams confirmed this. We rushed down the stairs, nearly being crushed in a stampede through the alleyways.

The next morning, Leo was interviewed on national television. He had helped point out to paramedics where the victims were lying. A biker duel gone wrong, two dead, fourteen injured. He took the call at the table of our hotel room—with our whole group on the other side of his computer, taking shots, jumping up & down, flashing him.

We partied the day & night away, this time on Rainey. While rocking back and forth on a set of egg-shaped chairs in a back patio, clinking beers, he leaned in and told me I should spend July 4th with him. He was planning a big blowout with his hometown friends and he wanted me to meet them. After a couple shots at the bar, I booked my ticket beside him and we high fived. A couple more shots and he stood leaning against the bar, letting his legs slide out away from him, as he chewed on his straw. Both of our heads were rolling lazily side to side at inconsistent intervals.

“Are you nervous about going back? I thought you always did. Go back.”

“No I do. I was just there. But…it’s different.”

“Why?”

“My best friend, my boy I told you about. Max. He’s getting ready to graduate and I want to make sure he, he sticks to the plan. The plan I, we made.”

“What plan?”

“Fuck, bro.”

“What?”

“To leave. Yakima.”

“Why does that… is that a plan?”

He stood all the way up and looked to the side, towards the bride to be on the mechanical bull. Then he nodded.

“Why?”

He curled his nose, as if preventing a sneeze.

“It’s...”

He paused for a long time, looking up at the stars, through the canopy of trees and high-rises.

“He just has to leave.”

The next morning I woke up in the hotel room we shared. The blinds were wide open, so the headache began immediately. I relieved the dry mouth with the coconut water my past self had left on the night table. I checked my phone and swiped immediately.

It was her.

We dated for a year in high school and broke up. We broke up because her parents did not let her date, for I was not of her religion. We then dated for all four years of college, long distance, in secret. We broke up a year before, around graduation, because her parents found out. The night they found out, she called me from a stranger’s phone in the parking lot of a Whole Foods. I pulled up in my car, speeding ticket in the cup holder next to me, and she was there, in her pajamas, with no shoes or socks on. The asphalt was still warm from the day. She was chewing on a mechanical pencil, and had a bruise on her forearm. The bathroom window, she explained.

She told me to take us to the airport, so that we could fly away and elope.

I drove on the highway while talking to my parents on speaker. Her parents had knocked on their door and demanded to know where their daughter was. She hung up my phone and told me to take the exit for the airport or else we would not end up together. I stared at the dotted white lines, until they turned solid. At the last moment, I turned the steering wheel right but the car in the lane next to us honked and I veered back. We passed the exit and I drove her to her parents.

I thought we could do it the right way.

Like all long relationships, the breakup was slow motion. We had last spoken three months before, when she told me she was doing a research opportunity in Rochester for the summer, to strengthen her med school application.

Her text asked me if I was going to be home for July 4th. Her parents were going away for a couple nights.

I knew I could still cancel the flight to Seattle within the 24 hour window. Leo stirred in his sleep, switching sides—from facing away from me, to now nesting his head in his hand in my direction, nuzzling it and then humming once. I remembered the timbre of his voice from the night before.

I deleted her text message.

I went back to Houston, where my best friend and I had moved to save money as we built our company. We settled into a steady, desperate rhythm once we were confronted with the void of getting a business off the ground. We worked 12 hour days and it was never enough. There was a heavy air in the room where we sat back to back, with whiteboards all around us, covered in half erased ink, circles, underlines.

All our initial investor contacts had ghosted us, our own friends weren’t using our app and the thousands we spent on influencers resulted in a tiny number of downloads. The day I left, my best friend asked me why I thought it was a good idea to be leaving now. I told him it was a holiday weekend. He said he planned on working all the way through. We had a silent car ride to the airport when he dropped me off.

She texted me again as I was in the security line.

“Hey. How are you?”

I deleted it as I stood on the bridge, roller bag in hand. The pilots were flicking switches in the cockpit. I kept my head turned out the window the entire flight, and pretended to sleep when the flight attendants came around. By the time we were heading down, my hair was a curly mess, from my running my hands through it. It was only when the plane bathed us in the clouds that I leaned back. There was a weekend promised.

III. DRIVING UNDER THE

Leo asked me to reach in his glove compartment for napkins and I was greeted by a pair of Jack Daniel’s shooters. This 10am whiskey made our 10:30am Dick’s burgers taste heavenly.

We leaned against his car and let the patty drip all over the crinkly white and blue paper. I stared at the spinning Dick’s sign as Leo licked his fingers. He explained that this was his first job and his manager from high school wrote him a rec to get into the University of Washington.

We stopped at the earliest opening liquor store. I asked him if the Seattle rain was due to make an appearance soon. As he placed the Blue Label on the counter, he stayed my hand which was reaching for my wallet.

“You’re my guest. Don’t even try.”

I smiled and he continued, telling me that he made a call to the people running the weather machine to hold the drizzle back. This was our favorite conspiracy.

It was not until the following day, as we got in his car and the skid plate dragged and sparked all the way to Yakima, that I had time to look through my camera roll and piece together what happened after we drove off from the liquor store and stopped at the Space Needle to take pulls.

He played a song on repeat the entire hour ride, to drown out the noise of his injured car. It started with a high pitched, euphoric humming. Leo said the song was playing when he found me at a random table, my eyes closed and my head resting on the shoulder of a woman. It did sound familiar. Like a lullaby. Like I remember the girl’s hair smelling. Absolution. Like what I was too afraid to ask for—so I pretended I didn’t believe in it anymore.

I’d rather be up with you

I’d rather be up with you

PHOTO ONE

A selfie of Leo and I at the local University of Washington bar.

We were in matching black hoodies, the big purple W outlined by a golden trim and in the middle, the proud husky looking off into the distance. We were sitting on stools—behind us the bartender was a green bandana wearing blonde girl in overalls smiling as she held up two glasses. She was framed by TVs and a dart board in the distance. Leo told me I had bought us the hoodies. We crossed the street from the library so he could show me where he would avoid studying for exams.

PHOTO TWO

Leo’s outstretched hand millimeters away from the famous gum wall.

PHOTO THREE

The clock tower at Public Market. I had a feeling I had taken this to send to my mother. Upon reviewing our messages I saw that indeed I had. She had sent me two pink hearts + the blushing face, and told me to enjoy & be safe.

PHOTO FOUR

Christine and Leo clinking together mugs at a brewery.

The large barrels, stacked three high, in the background and Christine pouting at the camera as Leo stuck his tongue out, brows furrowed. Christine was a bubbly, fast talking Vietnamese girl with immaculate lashes and nails. Leo told me that him and Christine had become fast friends freshman year, and then had drunkenly hooked up on a spring break trip to Cabo the year before. He had brought it up once. She pretended not to hear him. Last night, apparently, she was the one laughing about it.

He asked me if I thought she was hiding feelings for him. I tried to jog my memory. I remember Christine showing me lots of pictures of her dog, an old Pomeranian. We also talked about how she was gunning to be a food influencer full time. I didn’t remember her bringing Leo up at all. She said I reminded her so much of Max. Same height, same smile, same childish oscillation—either bright & playful or intensely withdrawn. She predicted we would either hit it off instantly or hate each other.

Don’t want to make the fall

I’d rather be up with you

I’d rather be up with you

Don’t want to risk it all

I’d rather be up with you

I’d rather be right there

PHOTO FIVE

There were five people in this photo, four of whom I did not recognize right away.

Leo was in the center, laughing. He had the kind of laugh where he opened his mouth wide before emitting a sound.

That was Shane and Christian on either side of him, Madison and Julie on either side of them. Shane was a California surfer, long blonde hair, lanky. Breezy, with a CFO dad. He had just come back from doing an Ironman on Hermosa Beach. The catch was that you had to drink a beer after every segment, so him and his brother ingested blue food coloring to make it picturesque. Christian was a Colorado Mexican, who didn’t speak a lick of Spanish. Tight v-neck t-shirt on a muscular frame, former frat star. They were holdovers from Leo’s time majoring in Finance before he switched to Political Science. There was a massive pride flag on the wall behind them, and multicolored pinball machines they were leaning on. Madison and Julie were also Wash U friends, stopping by for one drink.

PHOTO SIX

A woman’s hand, baby blue almond nails with orange spirals, pressing into a bronze mold of a bigger hand. Underneath this mold were the words “MACKLEMORE WAS HERE.” I lost it at this. Leo informed me that I similarly could not stop laughing when I encountered this in person. It pissed the bartender off.

PHOTO SEVEN

Leo hunched over a table with a pen in hand, writing on the bar’s postcard. It was his tradition to write and mail his mom a postcard wherever he found them.

PHOTO EIGHT

Shane and Christian doing a money spread with vacuum sealed bags of weed on their forearms.

Leo slapped his forehead and then pulled out a vape from his shirt pocket and told me I had given this to him at some point. He informed me that most of the weed was for Max.

PHOTO NINE

A viewpoint off a cliff that oversaw most of Seattle. Christine was sitting on a broad pale stone rolling a joint, as Shane stood next to her, pointing out at the setting sun. Leo told me him and Christian were off to the side, talking about Max. Christian had only met Max a few times, but Christian had gone to see Max DJ at a few venues in East Washington. He told Leo that Max should stick to the music thing. Leo said that was what he always told him.

PHOTO TEN

The photos were blurry now. It was me with another woman I didn’t recognize, but who looked awfully like Christine. We were in line for a club, the sun still holding on to its final embers. I was snarling, and the girl was throwing up the peace sign. Leo informed me that was Christine’s cousin, Vanessa.

Don’t want to make the fall

I’d rather be up with you

I’d rather be up with you

Don’t want to risk it all

I’d rather be up with you

I’d rather let you take me higher

PHOTO ELEVEN

Vanessa taking a selfie with me at the bar. My eyes were red and low. I was wearing a name tag that said HELLO I AM A HUMAN! Leo informed me that I had struck up a conversation with a group of Amazon employees who were gathering signatures for a petition. When I told them the startup I had just quit, their eyes went wide as they recounted to me the news I already knew. The startup had just raised a round at quadruple the valuation. My options would have been worth six figures plus if I stuck it out six months longer.

PHOTO TWELVE

I could barely discern this photo. Christine and Vanessa were in a state of flailing limbs and open mouths on the floor. Leo said this was the aftermath of an attempted piggy back ride.

PHOTO THIRTEEN

A rooftop bar with string lights, pinned on the dark blue sky. A tall black man in a pink, too-tight suit jacket was pointing at Shane, who was puking over the edge.

PHOTO FOURTEEN

A border collie staring up at me, tongue wagging, with a red bandana around his neck.

Your love has got me rich and blind and high

I won’t survive the fall

How about we stay a bit tonight?

Cause I need it

PHOTO FIFTEEN

An iPhone open to FaceTime. A curly haired, mustached blonde man with a strong jawline, his fist up, had a smile stretched way across his face. He was shirtless. We were in a club. This was Max, who picked up Leo’s call on the first ring.

PHOTO SIXTEEN

Leo tying Vanessa’s shoes. Christine’s curled fingers framed the shot, forming a heart around the scene.

PHOTO SEVENTEEN

I had to turn the phone sideways to make out any of this photo. It was dimly lit, and there were two faces huddled close together. I recognized my glasses. It was her selfie. I could only make out thick winged eyeliner.

PHOTO EIGHTEEN

In the back of the very car we were now driving in, Leo was turned towards the camera, McDonalds burger in hand passing me some fries. Christian was in the front seat driving. Apparently, Vanessa had started crying on my shoulder and the fries were for her.

PHOTO NINETEEN

Leo’s hands covering his face, fingers spread out, pulling his eyelids open, his mouth agape, as he crouched down, the car’s headlights directly on him. Christian was standing beside him scratching his beard. Vanessa and Christine were leaning against one another. Apparently the girls had been sitting on our laps, as we had agreed to take a random friend home who we ran into at McDonalds. Christian was speeding and ran over a median as if it wasn’t there. Everyone popped up and became acquainted with the ceiling of the car. The car’s underside became acquainted with the road.

Nothing’s everlasting

But if we keep on dancing

We don’t have to talk it out

Fire turns to ashes

The deeper you feel the truth

The harder you’ll come crashing down

We were meant to go straight from Seattle to Cheney the next day, but we had to hit a pit stop in Yakima to trade Leo’s car with his father’s.

As we pulled into Yakima’s city limits, the roads began to slope and wind. They were carved into the valley.

I saw endless fields of hops and apples and grapes. The landscape was teeming with blades, tractors, and dotted with workers in large hats. As we pulled into a long suburban street, every house a freshly painted pastel colored two story with a chimney, a man resembling Leo, with a salt and pepper beard and a paunch, stood watering his lawn. We pulled into the driveway and he shook his head.

“What the fuck happened Leo?”

He turned to me as I got out of the car.

“Excuse my language. I don’t normally greet my son’s friends like this. But just, wow.”

Leo raised his voice,

“You don’t know how pissed I am dad.”

It was a traffic cone that got wedged under the car, as it careened off a truck on the highway. Unavoidable. I nodded along. Leo’s father accepted enough effort was put into this lie that he could pretend to buy it. He crossed his arms and then flicked back with his big hand.

“Your mom’s inside with some food.”

He grunted and then slowly lowered himself to inspect the damage. Leo whisked me away. A golden retriever greeted us with a full body wag at the door. Leo kneeled down and let her lick his face clean. She tried to jump up on me and I found myself doing a little shuffle with her, her paws in my hands.

Leo’s mother was the one who gave him those warm eyes. She made us sit down and fixed us a bowl of pozole. Along with her endless stream of questions about my background, something wound tight in my chest began to loosen.

She grabbed my hand and thanked me for being such a good friend to Leo. I thought back to how Leo helped us get our first two hundred users, as he walked around Wash U’s campus recruiting beta testers.

I excused myself to the bathroom and was directed upstairs. On the way there, I passed by Leo’s room. His white door had his name on it in big wooden letters, arranged in an alternating tilt. I poked my head in and saw a trophy cabinet take up most of the wall beside the big window to the backyard where clothes were hanging to dry.

To the left was a cork board filled with newspaper clippings, Leo in football pads with black undereye tape in most of the photos:

“YAKIMA’S HOMETOWN HERO WINS DISTRICT CHAMPIONSHIP”

“THE VALLEY’S YOUNG HOPE”

“VALEDICTORIAN’S GOAL? GIVE BACK TO COMMUNITY THAT RAISED HIM”

“YAKIMA’S FINEST IS HEADED WEST ON A FULL RIDE!”

When I made it back downstairs, Leo was chatting with his parents, his mother drying her hands on a kitchen towel, and his dad chewing on a toothpick.

“So did Max make up his mind yet?” his dad barked.

“I mean pretty much, he’s a-uh yes, he just has to let his dad know when he comes home next weekend.”

“Good. Good.”

“I hope he goes. I love the idea of you two moving in together. Being in a new city like that can be a lot.” his mom said.

“Talking about Max?” I asked.

“Yes. My Max.” Leo’s mom’s cheeks bounced up at the mention of his name.

“Those two were trouble since they met.”

His dad recounted to me their friendship in vignettes. Sixth grade homeroom, where it all started. Leo the star athlete, Max the star musician. Max lived around the block and would give Leo rides to high school in his dad’s car until Leo got his own senior year. Max covered for Leo one time, when he was caught smoking weed behind the school, telling Leo’s mom it was part of a dare. Leo covered for Max one time, when Max was caught hooking up with a girl in the forest behind their school, pretending to be Max’s dad on the phone when the principal called home.

“The only difference between them two is that Max thinks too much with his other head.” His dad cracked his first smile. His wife pushed his shoulder.

“Yea, Max is a real player.” Leo said.

“I don’t know why. He could have a nice girlfriend. I think it would do him good.” His mom shook her head.

“Well you know, after the whole thing with Katie, he never really got over it. But last month he told me he was seeing this one girl, so who knows. We’re gonna find out.”

Leo pursed his lips and there was a lull in the conversation as everyone looked around the floor. Leo’s mom grabbed our cups and refilled them with water from the fridge.

Leo looked at his phone.

“We should go. We promised them we’d be there before 5.”

I hugged his parents. His mom asked me what I’d like her to make us when we got back in two days. I told her I was not worth that trouble, but she did get out of me a love for al pastor tacos. She held my head in both her hands for a moment. Then she said to say hello to Max for her.

We jimmied the baby seat out of his dad’s minivan. As we moved our red Marlboro duffel of weed from the old car to the new one, Leo discovered his skateboard behind his dad’s golf clubs. I recorded a video of him attempting a kick flip until he finally landed one. He looked up at me, his eyes expectant, childlike.

We were back out on the road. A chili burger in a diner nestled between the mountains gave us our final recharge. Leo wouldn’t stop laughing at the giant ketchup stain on his rugby shirt’s collar. A bottle of Tito’s grew warm in our laps, shuffling back and forth, dribbling down our chins. We arrived at Wazzu with our fangs wet.

IV. WELCOME TO CHENEYLAND

“What is Max studying?”

“Comms. He flunked out of Marketing.”

“Hmm. Is that what he’s gonna do in Chicago? A...comms job?”

It occurred to me I didn’t know the career path for that major.

“I mean he just needs any kind of job for now but yea. I’ve been trying to get him to apply to a bunch. I send him links all the time. He says he’s been applying but… I doubt it.”

I stared straight out ahead, knowing Leo would continue.

“He’s just his own worst enemy you know. He’s actually really smart. But he procrastinates. He smokes all day, or he parties. He doesn’t even work on his music as much.”

“What kind of music does he make?”

“R&B. It’s actually pretty good bro. And I’m not just saying that cause he’s my boy. Last year he sold out a couple shows at the bars in Cheney.”

He thumbed through his phone to put on a track. It began with a glittery piano and a gentle percussion joined in.

You captivate me

You my only craving

Guess what my baby?

I love it when you train me

When you wake me

And you say

You better obey me

Then you make me

Feel real shaky

Real real shaky

Please don’t play me

Please don’t play me

I just wanna talk

It’s me, myself and my Glock

What good is the top

If you’re not?

“This is Max?”

“Yeah.”

Leo had a way of drawing out the Y in his Yeas like it was dragging on the floor, hissing from his bottom teeth. It was the affirmative of affirmatives.

“Wow. He is good.”

“I know. He knows it but he doesn’t take it seriously enough.”

I looked at Leo, his hands gripping the steering wheel tightly. The road ahead was empty, except for a dot in the distance. We were zooming into a postcard of the Pacific.

“To be fair. He’s been doing more live streaming lately.”

“Live streaming?”

“Yea. He started doing these skits on TikTok and they blew up. Then he started live streaming cause TikTok is paying people so much. Last month he made almost two grand.”

“What does he do on the live stream?”

“He’s the type of guy that always has someone over at his apartment, so he’ll just sit there with people and they’ll talk about anything. He can make anything interesting. And it helps that he’s got so many absolute baddies as guests.”

“Why do you want him to get out of Yakima so badly?”

Leo looked over at me for the first time.

“Why do you ask it like that?”

“Because you’ve got this, I don’t know, intensity about wanting him out. But from what I just saw, it doesn’t look too bad. Your parents seem happy. They said your brother and his wife are happy there.”

“Max is different. Yakima. It’s not him. Or… it’s too him.”

I tilted my head and looked at the mountain we were passing. It was covered in a dense forest, the fog covering its very tip.

Leo stepped on the gas to overtake a logging truck that was crawling ahead. When we went around it, he looked in the rearview mirror.

“When Max was 15, his mom died of cancer. And it just, fucked something up inside him. He can’t stand being home. Whenever he’s in Yakima, he’s like a time bomb. He would get too bored there, he’d self destruct. It’s bad enough in Cheney. Yakima? There’s nothing to do, nowhere to go.”

“Nowhere to go.” I echoed his final words.

“Nowhere to go.”

As we entered the Cheney city limits, a squadron of three fire trucks roared past us, Leo pulling over to the dirt. As we pulled into Max’s apartment complex, I saw a plume churning in the distance. We climbed the outdoor steps to the third floor. Before knocking, I realized it was fields of dry grass on fire. The charred smell had been with us the whole time.

“Does that happen a lot?”

Leo shrugged as he rapped on the door. Then he talked, mostly to himself.

“Max hasn’t texted me back in three hours. He better not be…ou…w…fr.”

The door swung open and a wide, red-nosed Mexican with a crew cut opened it. He had on a paint speckled navy t-shirt, with a union’s crest on it.

“Look at this fucking guy.”

“Right back at ya brother.”

The two hugged tight.

“Who the fuck are you?”

The door opener pointed right at me, in my face.

“Nah I’m just fucking with ya. Leo told me all about you. Said you’re smarter than him. Not sure how that’s possible.”

He smelled like Polo Blue, and wore baggy dark jeans, white Air Forces. I liked him immediately. He was present, his voice trustworthy. As we walked into the kitchen, he opened the fridge to grab us some beers and introduced himself as Marco.

“Look at this guy acting like he owns the place.”

Leo laughed as he dropped the duffel off in an open bedroom and closed the door.

I scanned the apartment. There was a large L couch. It probably started off as a light green but was now a brownish color, almost the same color as the carpet. A big red Wazzu Cougars flag above a TV that was perched precariously on a textbook stand. An uncovered air mattress and some ratty bean bags. Another crew cut man was laid up on the biggest bean bag, his shoes off, his white polo collar popped. He had the look of a pale mean dog, thin eyebrows, hooked nose, and was fixated on the baseball game he was playing on the TV.

“How about you introduce yourself J. Show some fucking manners.”

He paused the game but made no attempt to stand up. Leo smacked him on the side of the head as he said hello and he grabbed for Leo’s ankles, who skipped away. I nodded my head and motioned the neck of my beer.

“What’s up man. I’m Joaquin.”

He turned and continued playing. Leo and Marco looked at each other and shook their heads. Marco started telling me about his job as a repairman on power lines in Yakima. We were getting into some embarrassing Leo stories when there was a knock at the door.

“Probably the girls.”

“Where the fuck is Max?”

As Marco walked over to answer it, he threw over his shoulder,

“Said he was gonna run an errand like 15 minutes before you guys got here.”

“It better not be what I think it is,” Leo said to no one in particular.

I watched Joaquin strike out.

“Ohhhh who let this fat fuck in? Yosemite Sam.”

Marco poked a pearl button flannel wearing white boy in the stomach. The white boy had on a black bandana around his nose and mouth, a trucker hat on. He playfully feinted and then stepped in to drop off his pack of Miller Lite on the kitchen table. Behind him followed a black cat of a woman— sure, blonde hair & blue eyes, but black top, black skirt, a heavy black eye and dark cherry nails. She let the door frame hold her for a moment, then slinked in, and kissed Marco on the cheek.

“Hey S, how you doing girl?”

“Wade, this is my boy Levi I was telling you about. The one I met in DC, went to NYU. This is Wade, and his girlfriend Sierra.”

Wade undid his bandana and I shook his firm, calloused hand. I waved at Sierra, who waved quickly then wove her fingers through a colorful beaded strap, bringing her phone up to her face. Wade asked me what I was drinking. Without waiting for my response, he asked me if I was a dirty liberal. I said I didn’t know for how much longer I believed in any kind of politics and he pulled out a beer from his back pocket and tapped it again my own, said he could get behind that answer. Sierra rolled her eyes behind Wade.

Wade asked me to sit next to him on the couch and give him investment advice. He kept calling me New York. We started talking about index funds, dollar cost averaging, then graduated to crypto and finally, he asked me if my startup was looking for investors. He gulped down a big chug of beer, let out a burp and didn’t let me answer before saying he was down to put in a couple grand if it could help, because Leo had spoken highly of me and looking me in the eye now he could tell I was doing big things. I stammered out that we weren’t raising yet but I would keep him in mind. He smiled and poked just above his ear, keeping his eyes on Joaquin’s baseball game on the TV.

“Keep me top of mind, cowboy.”

Sierra stood off to the side of the kitchen table, sipping a seltzer and scrolling through her phone, until Leo brought her into the conversation by asking her about her friend.

“Oh now you’re asking about her? Last time you were Mr. Too Cool.”

“Whoa whoa, I’m just being friendly.”

Leo smiled as he put his arms and hands up.

“Mhmmm. Well it’s too late, she’s got a guy now. They’re pretty serious.”

“What’s serious for Lindsay? He texted her back within the week?”

Marco laughed as Sierra scowled at him. She asked Wade where the speaker was, and without looking up, he reached behind his head, over the couch cushion and we heard the startup noise. He returned to resting his beer and hands on his stomach.

He told Joaquin to throw a slider on the next pitch. Joaquin ignored him and the batter hit a double. Wade told him to throw a curveball on the next batter and Joaquin threw a fastball and it cost him another base hit.

Now over the sound of some early 2000s hip hop, Wade told Joaquin to throw a fastball on this hitter. Joaquin asked him if he wanted to play, raising his voice and pausing the game. Wade shrugged and said no, he’d rather watch. He didn’t look at Joaquin. Joaquin chewed the inside of his cheek as he pressed play. He threw a fastball, the batter popped a fly and that ended the inning.

“So you live here?”

“Me? No. None of us live here. Max lives here with Cody and Casey. I thought they would be here already.”

I looked over at Sierra who was swinging her hips slowly to the beat in the kitchen, as Marco put his fingers in his mouth and whistled to encourage her.

“She’s so goddamn sexy right?” Wade tapped my shoulder with his beer.

“Huh? Uh yea. Yea she’s, uh, a pretty girl man.”

“The prettiest. We’ve been dating since high school. Prom king and queen. Ever since I met her she walks around like her shit don’t smell. I love it.”

The door summoned us once more.

“That better be Max.”

“Don’t count on it. You know what he’s up to.”

Wade readjusted his belt buckle. Leo looked at me then looked away quickly. Marco put an arm on his shoulder and whispered into his ear.

The door opened and a crowd of four streamed in. Two tall white boys, the skinniest and most freckled pair I’d ever seen with a similarly freckled pair of brunettes. The white boys entered doing whips and nae naes and the girls behind them dropped off packs of seltzers on the table. The girls greeted Sierra and immediately huddled.

“The twin towers. That’s what we call them. Wazzu’s nastiest golfers. If they weren’t high all the time I think they’d go pro.”

Wade had read my mind. The twin towers air humped Joaquin, then turned off the television before they came over to our corner.

“Yo yo yooooooo. You must be Levi? I’m Cody.”

“I’m Casey.”

They snapped their necks in unison, tracing something outside the window. Cody slid the balcony door to the side. I followed behind, leaving it open.

“Fuuuuck dude.”

We could see firefighters fighting the glowing blaze in the distance.

They produced beer bottles out of their pockets and proceeded to open them by smacking them on the balcony railing. Indentations littered the steel. A yellow and green braided pool chair held a chipped ceramic alligator ashtray filled to the brim with roaches.

“So this your first time in Cheney?”

“It’s my first time in Washington. I’ve only ever been to SF on the West Coast.”

“No wayyy.”

“Yes way.”

“How you liking it so far?”

I proceeded to show them the photo of Leo’s car. The two’s eyes widened and they slapped each other on the shoulder. We heard a commotion inside.

“Why are you going through Max’s room and Max’s shit?”

Marco was standing over Joaquin, who was holding a bag of weed and trying to move past him.

“He owes me anyways.”

“He doesn’t owe you shit.”

Everyone else was ignoring this encounter. I noticed Wade still on the couch, his bandana back on.

Sierra made for the front door and let in two girls she air kissed, a small Asian girl and a tall blonde. Marco and Joaquin tensed and turned. Leo greeted the girls, then Marco brought them over to me, the group standing at the open balcony door.

“This is my girlfriend Zoey.” I greeted the blonde with a handshake.

“And this is Joaquin’s girl Alyssa.” Alyssa leaned in and I gave her a peck on the cheek.

Joaquin walked past the girls and sat down in the pool chair, pulling out papers from a rusty toolbox beneath it I hadn’t noticed. Marco rolled his eyes and he escorted the girls back to the kitchen. Wade slotted into the bean bag and changed the TV to the Mariners game.

“Where’s Max at?”

Cody and Casey had produced a six iron that Casey was pretending to swing over his head at Cody.

“Oh he’s doing Max things.”

“He’ll be here soon.”

“You’re gonna love him.”

“Everyone loves him.”

“Everyone.”

This last comment came from Joaquin, who had rolled the joint in record time. He lit it, took a puff and handed it to me. I took my own long drag and then passed it to Cody.

“Why does everyone love him?”

“You’ll see.”

Cody blew his smoke in Casey’s face.

The music grew louder and better. I checked my phone and saw that she had texted me again.

“Are you mad at me?”

I deleted this message immediately, then turned off my phone and looked across through the balcony glass at the girls in the kitchen, hands up singing along. My eyes drifted to Leo, who was on his own phone. He had it up to his right ear, and plugged his left ear with his finger as he stepped into Max’s room.

“There he is.”

I followed Cody’s gaze to the road below us, the long stretch of asphalt flanked by pine trees. There was a golden hue emanating from across the field. I could see a navy mass darting, then turning into the apartment complex with a screech.

Leo exited Max’s room and excused himself through the girls as he reached into the cupboard for tiny solo shot cups. All green.

I didn’t even see Wade look up but he answered my question once more,

“ahh the St. Patty’s leftovers.”

My head was floating in a lazy river. I didn’t realize I was humming along to the song until it abruptly cut off.

The speaker restarted with a familiar sound. The 2016 hitmaker, who went 4 for 4 and then disappeared. His crooning rang out as the beat dropped.

My n****s stack they money just to spend it

Cause when you die you cannot take it with you

And if you ain’t beefin about no money what’s the problem?

Don’t worry about my n*****s cause I got ‘em

Everyone sang along, Cody grabbing me by the shoulder to sway with him and Casey. I raised my beer and it splashed all over us. This activated them, and they raised their voice and jumped up and down.

Then the music lowered gradually. I studied Sierra, who looked at Alyssa and dished out her locally famous eye roll.

Leo waved me in. I made it to the TV before the door burst open and the song returned louder than ever, as if the speaker discovered a new level.

What entered was less a person, more a force. I caught an open mouth, crooked bottom teeth, a thick light brown mustache, bright white t shirt. Arms downturned in a flex, then raised wide. I was part of a mosh with the guys, as the girls flung their drinks about, spraying the walls, the couch, our clothes.

Suddenly that force was bumping me chest to chest. At some point I had lost my beer and he put his own hands up as pretend mitts. I threw some hooks and jabs, then reciprocated as he boxed me with precision.

He wrapped his arm around me. We bobbed side to side, us in the middle of the circle, all the figures around us in a coordinated movement, and he screamed in my ear,

“WELCOME TO CHENEYLAND BABY!”

He continued as a tornado, ushering me into the kitchen to help him pour everyone shots and there was no need to tell me he was Max but he did anyways and said he had been dying to meet me and Leo had said I was the most ambitious person he had ever met which he couldn’t comprehend because Leo was the most ambitious person he ever met and he put a finger in my chest and said you better not be stealing him away from me with a big smile on his face. The song neared its end and he took his phone out and restarted it, shouting over the pandemonium as he told me that his house was my house and whatever I needed, drugs, alcohol, food, women, song requests, blood, drugs, clothes, car, money, oxygen, I could count on him.

We took two rounds of shots just me and him before we passed out the green cups to everyone. He stood in the middle of the room and put his arm up as everyone turned to him. I noticed the shaggy haired frontman tattooed on his wrist.

“CHEERS TO THE GUEST OF HONOR. LEVI...”

He turned to me and whispered, “what’s your last name?”

“Lopez.”

“CHEERS TO MOTHER. FUCKING. LEVI. LOPEZ. LET’S SHOW HIM HOW WE DO IN WAZZUUUUUU.”

His face contorted into the Scream mask, tongue out, eyes back as the U’s dragged on.

It wasn’t that shot that did me in. It was the vodka pull in the passenger seat of Max’s car. He kicked Leo out, said he wanted me upfront. The last thing I remember was how fast he was driving, in his slammed Civic with bronze rims and a rear wing. The fuzzy orange die on the rearview mirror. I remember looking down and realizing it was a manual car and being impressed by that. My eyes darted from the gearshift, to the large bruise on his thigh, right where his denim shorts rode up.

The next morning I awoke on the couch, Marco on the air mattress next to me, Joaquin on the bean bag and Leo on the other part of the couch, our feet nearly touching. Human Tetris.

I scrolled through my photos once more to jog the memory, and thanked my past self for planting a bottle of water near my head. I realized a song was playing faintly from someone’s phone, mixed in with a light snore. A country song, probably the only one I could name.

It was my phone.

Yea you used to talk about

Getting in further south

Somewhere where the summer lasted all year round

Probably got a big ole diamond on your hand right now

Maybe a baby or a couple by now

Long driveway to a big white house

PHOTO ONE

Leo on top of Max’s car, with Max alongside him. They were raising a WWE belt.

PHOTO TWO

Most of our crew on stage in a dimly lit honky tonk bar, leaning in to share the single mic Max was holding. Everyone stared up at a screen above them, except Leo who was looking at Max with a smile on his face and reaching over to grab the mic.

PHOTO THREE

A picture of Joaquin’s phone, open to a motorcycle zoomed in to the drive chain. I recalled him ambushing me in the corner as I returned from the bathroom and showing me his prized possession. It was pretty sick, a Ninja that was iced out, a light blue, with a large Mexican flag on the gas tank. My cousin in Long Island was a motorcycle mechanic and I promised him I’d try to hook him up with a part he was finding too expensive out here. I then remembered that he asked me if his lisp was obvious. I asked him what lisp? He didn’t believe me. He locked his phone and looked at me closely, before walking to the bathroom. When he came back he bought me a drink, just me and him.

PHOTO FOUR

Sierra with the widest, brightest smile, eyes looking to the side, bent forward at the waist. She was holding a glass cowboy boot filled with beer, pressed against her face, and as her brunette friend with the garnet leather vest mirrored her, her own boot half full.

But I wonder when you’re drinking

If you find yourself thinking

About that boy from East Tennessee

PHOTO FIVE

Max and Leo up there on stage alone, Leo’s arm around Max’s as they belted into the mic.

PHOTO SIX

Cody pointing at Casey who was peeing in front of a closed saloon style door.

PHOTO SEVEN

Marco with his shirt in hand above his head, twirling it as he ran around in an empty intersection. The girls in the corner laughing. Cody and Casey head butting one another as Wade took his own picture. Leo and Max nowhere to be found. Joaquin arms crossed under the stoplight.

PHOTO EIGHT

What looked like a pig sty. It was indecipherably dirty, filled with shoes, clothes, coolers, cans, rags, dip cans, buckets, tools. The floor was not visible. I had no idea what this was.

And I know we both knew better

But we still said forever

And that was seven summers of Coke and Southern Comfort

Were we dumb or just younger?

Who knows?

PHOTO NINE

Wade on a basketball court in front of a brick schoolhouse. He had on an EL PRESIDENTE hat that had five stars in an arc, and a wrinkly MILLER HIGH LIFE t shirt. Wade was showing us his frat house in its abandoned-for-the-summer glory.

PHOTO TEN

At first I thought this was a picture of Marco and Joaquin lying on the grass in front of the frat house, but upon closer inspection, it seemed that I was trying to inconspicuously take a picture of Leo and Max behind them. Max had his arms wide open, as if taking the world into his possession. Leo was looking out with him.

PHOTO ELEVEN

Marco and Max feeding their pizza slices to a couple of stray dogs behind a dumpster.

Back then you used to love the river

And sipping on a sixer with me

Does it ever make you sad to know

That was seven summers ago?

I stood gingerly and went to go catch my bearings on the balcony. Sitting in the pool chair, I could see that there were still firefighters out there, but the blaze looked like it was receding. I heard something inside and peered around the wall to a woman holding heels being escorted out by Max.

He joined me on the balcony.

“Dudeee. I was hoping someone would be up.”

“Barely.”

He pulled out a plastic toddler stool, its three legs different primary colors, from behind the pool chair. I offered to switch with him but he made a face of overacted rejection. I was hoping he would pull out a joint, and sure enough he did.

“How was your first night in Cheneyland homie?”

“Considering I don’t remember much, I’d say great.”

“That’s what I’m fucking talking about.”

He took a big hit, a fat one that had me wondering when it was going to end. And he ghosted it before dapping me up and handing it to me.

“You were on one last night.”

“Me?” I said coughing.

“Yea. You.” He said his yeas exactly like Leo.

“How so?”

“I didn’t know you knew your country like that.”

My face turned red at the thought of me belting out that song.

“I mean, just that one you know. Everyone knows that one. Not that I can sing.”

“Nah you had some pipes brother.”

He took another big hit. I looked out at the fire as he handed it back to me.

“What was up with that tall ginger? The one that came in at the end with her friend.”

“I don’t remember any ginger.”

“Bullshit. She had that little green scarf tied around her neck. You were going crazy for that, you kept telling me it was driving you wild. The scarf.” He was laughing by the end of this and I was too.

“Well what happened?” I was feeling weightless.

“She kept asking you to roll your Rs. But you wouldn’t stop talking about this other girl.” He scratched his ankle.

“Oh. Yea. I do that sometimes.”

“Me too. Not the best play.”

We broke out into a shared laugh again. I rejected another hit, and he went to work on finishing it as we continued to stare out.

“I got me one of those.”

“One of those?”

“You know. One of those. The one.” He motioned with his hand out at the field.

“I mean I don’t know, I don’t think this is the one. I hope not.”

“Believe me, man. Me neither. But I’m not sure that’s something we can control.”

I turned to look at him. He blew out and then turned to me.

“Do you think we can control that?”

“I don’t think about what I can and can’t control.”

“Smart man.”

He put out the remainder of the joint in the ash tray, then brushed his pale chest, and picked at a small mole on his top rib.

“So tell me about her.”

“Only if you do too.”

“Hey I probably shared enough about her last night.”

He laughed.

“You’re right. Also you’re welcome, cause I stopped you from texting her.”

I suddenly remembered the bruise. I tried to let my eyes drift over, but he had already placed his hand over it, as if he’d been waiting for me to look. He had on black mesh shorts, grey slides on his feet.

“There’s not much to say. Usually if there’s lots to say it’s cause…I don’t know. There’s like not anything else left.”

“Mhm.”

“I met her when I was 16. Right after my mom passed. She lives in Wapato. Little town on the reservation near Yak.”

He scratched the back of his left arm.

“Stormy girl. With these gorgeous green eyes.”

I continued looking at him, but I knew there was no way he was going to look at me.

“No one gets me like she does. But nobody believes that. They think she brings me down.” He motioned behind him, with a flick of the wrist and a yawn.

“She was supposed to get married last month, but I—she broke things off.”

“So you’re together?”

“Sort of. Not really.”

“What’s stopping you from being together?”

“Now that’s the million dollar question isn’t it?”

He finally turned to me and smiled. It was then that I noticed a painting over his shoulder, on the small piece of wall to the right of the balcony. If it came loose, it could fall to the bushes below. The background was a creamy, sunny sorbet haze and the woman in the painting was shades of yellow outlined in black. She had orange, panicked eyes, and a blue headed swallow caught in her mouth, its wings flapping. The way her hand was raised I couldn’t tell if she was trying to keep it there or take it out.

“That’s a crazy painting.”

He turned to admire it.

“It is, isn’t it?”

He stood and walked towards it, then reached out to touch the woman’s hair.

“It’s my mom’s. She was a painter. She gave me this. It was her last one before, you know.”

He gave me a forced smile and looked down, hands on his hips. I didn’t know what to say.

“That was my best friend. I still pray to her everyday. You pray?”

He sat back down and proceeded to produce another joint from his pocket. The bruise on his thigh was mostly green, with some purple swirling out.

“I started to. Recently. It’s real nice.”

“It’s the best.”

Against my better judgement, I smoked half of this new joint with him.

“The tattoo, I like. It.”

He looked down at his wrist.

“Thanks homie. 27 club.”

He grinned.

“What’s this about moving to Chicago with Leo?”

His grin disappeared and he waved this off.

“Leo gets all these big ideas.”

A long pause.

“I’m not saying I won’t go, but he’s so desperate about it being right away. Like I’m gonna be stuck forever if I don’t get on the next plane.”

“He really loves you you know.”

“Oh I know. He ought to love himself first though.”

“What do you mean?”

“You don’t think he has his own demons? I love the kid but he does a good job of making everyone feel like he’s got it all under control.”

I contemplated this. I had never seen a real crack in Leo’s armor.

“So you do or don’t wanna live with him?”

“Of course I wanna live with him. That’s my fucking brother. But I don’t want him to make me feel like it’s do or die. Like he’s doing me a big favor.”

“I don’t think he thinks about it that way man. I think he just sees, like how amazing your life could be away from all this and he just wants to make sure you get there.”

Max scratched his chest.

“He’s so obsessed with getting out of here. Ever since I met him. Sometimes I think he’s embarrassed of us.”

“That couldn’t be further from the truth. He was dying for me to meet you guys.”

“You’re the first one of his friends not from college that we’ve met.”

I had no response.

“He ever tell you about his depression?”

“He mentioned it once.”

“He tell you why?”

“Something about moving away from home.”

“Uh huh. Yea. Sure. You know he almost went to NYU?”

“Yea it was one of the first things he told me. He said he didn’t get enough scholarship money.”

“That’s what he told you.” He blew out a long trail of smoke.

“Yea.”

“Figures. He didn’t go to NYU cause his high school sweetheart didn’t want him to. She was staying in state and wanted him to stay in state.”

“What happened?”

“You’ll have to ask him that. Another time though. I don’t want to ruin this weekend.”

By this point I couldn’t feel my arms and legs, only my eyelids and how heavy they were. Max invited me into his room, and we tiptoed over the masses of bodies. He handed me headphones and played me tracks from a mixtape he was about to release. I couldn’t tell if I liked the guy that much or it was the weed, but I was buzzing.

“You’re an artist aren’t you?”

“Huh?” I wondered if Leo had seen me writing in DC, and passed this along.

“You just got that vibe you know. Like the way you look at people and shit.”

“I mean yea I like writing.” My face flushed as I said this.

“Oh hell yea. That’s fire bro. You gotta show me some stuff.”

Behind his monitor, I noticed a stack of postcards. He saw my eyes dart back and forth. He grabbed the top one from the pile, flipping it over so I couldn’t read the writing on the back, only see the abstract desert illustration on the front.

“Just a little tradition. You know how Leo writes postcards to his mom?”

“Yea.”

“Well who do you think taught him that?”

The rest of the day floated in and out. Once you start smoking in the morning, you sort of drag on, like a Dali painting. We stopped in Spokane, where Joaquin threw up in the river that snaked through the downtown. He got vomit on his shirt and we walked to the Carhartt store for him to buy a new one. He kept grumbling about how expensive it was and how he needed to get a better job.

We made it into a Mexican spot that had walls covered with Loteria. I was unable to understand how Max kept smoking throughout the whole day and appeared completely sober. He kept ambushing me with Snapchat selfies, which he would send to the same list of girls over and over again. The check came with a postcard attached on a paper clip. Leo and Max’s eyes flicked over it.

“You take it. I’ve sent—you know, I have one from here.”

Max nodded, eyes down and unclipped it. He placed it between his hands in a prayer formation.

Joaquin and Marco had a rattling chain between them. At first I thought it was just their baseline being exacerbated by the hangover. On the way back to the car, they got into a tripping contest that ended up with them grappling one another to the ground. Max and Leo grumbled as they broke them apart.

As we all buckled into the car, Max explained that Joaquin was mad at Marco for encouraging their girlfriends to go together with a group of friends to an EDM show in Vegas. Apparently, Joaquin thought his girlfriend was hoping to be around a guy she had previously hooked up. Marco said he was a jealous insecure loser and Joaquin punched him in the balls, next to me in the backseat. I got a stray elbow as Marco folded over. Leo and Max told them to knock it off and we rode in silence back to Max’s apartment.

Then my eyes shifted to Max and Leo. We were originally going to take both cars to Coeur d’Alene. I didn’t even know CDA was part of the plan, nor did I even know it existed. Marco laughed and told me to look up the election results for CDA.

86% for the president.

Max and Leo were conferring privately in his room. Leo came out clenching his jaw and said we should get on the road. That Max wasn’t gonna join us. Max called out, his voice shrill.

“Oh don’t be a baby. I didn’t say I wasn’t coming. I just said I can’t go now.”

“Why?” Joaquin was playing MLB again.

“I just got some shit to take care of.”

Marco looked at me and raised his eyebrows.

“Come on Joaquin.”

Leo walked over to the TV and bent down to turn off the PlayStation.

“Hey what the fuck?”

Leo’s glare shut up Joaquin and we all shuffled out. I was the last one out and looked back inside, hoping to catch Max’s eye. I could make him out lying on his bed, one arm over his eyes, the other hand slow through his hair, twirling his curls.

V. INDEPENDENCE DAY

Joaquin and Marco and I smoked a joint out of the sunroof. We ended up at a roadside restaurant, one where we had to order on iPads chained to tables. I don’t remember what I ate, only that we kept taking iPad selfies to set them as the lock screen. We tried to outdo one another and vote on if a photo was worthy of becoming the screensaver.

Then we were in Idaho. To my surprise, I awoke from a cat nap in front of a beach. Shoes off.

“Wake up bro. We’re in Florida. You’re home.”

I blinked, spiraling to in a bright haze and looked around. Digging my toes in, I realized I was in sand.

I looked across the way and saw it was a large lake, with sand all around this end, and a forest on the other. A kid next to me slathered in sunscreen knocked over his brother’s sand castle. The little brother began to cry and their mom came over and dragged them both off. I laid down in the sand, and dozed off again.

When I woke up, Joaquin was sitting a few feet away from me, his jeans rolled up and his feet in the water. I approached him from behind, asking him where Leo and Marco were. As I knelt to try to make sense of his mumbling, I noticed his shoulders moving up and down as he turned away.

“What’s up? What happened?”

He kept his body squarely facing the lake. I sat alongside him and slowly lifted my own pants from the bottom, to stretch out my legs.

“She’s…the…only…thing…that’s….mine.” The words came out in waves of shuddering.

“Who is?”

“Alyssa.”

“She’s the only thing that’s yours?”

“Yea. Yea she is.”

“What makes you say that?”

“My parents don’t give a shit about me. My brother is in prison. My sister’s knocked up. None of the guys would notice if I died tomorrow.”

I let my feet dig deeper into the damp sand, kneading mindlessly.

“And I’m, I’m” he was almost heaving at this point, still facing away from me.

“I’m gonna lose her.” Finally he turned, not at me, but at least staring straight ahead, drawing his knees up to his chest.

“What makes you say you’re gonna lose her?”

“Cause she doesn’t love me. She’s just waiting to leave.”

“You’re just saying that. You don’t know how she actually feels.”

He sniffed and looked down at the sand.

“I know. Believe me I know.”

The final words were barely audible.

“Everyone leaves me.”

I wanted to place my arm around him, and after a minute of deliberating it, I finally did. He didn’t pull away. We sat there for another ten minutes silently, me rubbing his back. The only sound to make out was that of the families around us tittering, babies crying.

Joaquin grabbed a handful of sand and let it run down through his fingers. Then he stood and we sat on a bench waiting for Marco and Leo to come pick us up, our socks and shoes in hand.

Our first stop of the night was a bar that exclusively served drinks in elaborate ceramic containers. I had a watermelon margarita served in a light green toilet bowl with a crimson interior. There were string lights hanging everywhere, dangling above us like vines. To my surprise, Wade, Sierra, Cody, Casey and some of the girls from the night before walked in to join us.

“Look who it is. New York!”

It was great to feel Wade’s hand slapping my back. Despite having little recollection of the day before, we all relaxed into a camaraderie. Leo asked if Max was on his way. Cody and Casey looked at each other and shrugged.

“His door was closed when we left, but his car was in the parking lot.”

Wade whispered to me, “you wanna talk about a married couple? People give Sierra and me shit, but Leo and Max are worse.”

He took a swig of his beer, one he had demanded to have served to him in a traditional glass.

As the sun was setting, we walked a few blocks over to the main bar in CDA. The city was bursting with people, and true to its voting bloc, they looked as if they hadn’t seen the sun much. But to my relief, there were no active glares. More stumbling and chest thumping than anything.

The bar we ended up at felt like a boxing ring. The bar was a square in the middle, slightly raised, and was the only well-lit section. People milled about the edges, and some in the back where the pool tables were.

Take me down to the paradise city

Where the grass is green and the girls are pretty

Oh won’t you please take me home

I saw Joaquin and Marco conferring by the red and white jukebox, as Leo and I were playing pool against Cody and Casey. Marco called over Sierra, who pulled out her phone and then shook her head, eyes rolling. Joaquin chewed on the inside of his mouth. A cowboy hat wearing man walked near them, and Joaquin made a big show about the guy stepping on his shoes. Marco patted the guy on the back as he apologized, then snatched the beer from Joaquin’s hand and threw it in the trash next to them.

Wade let out a big whoop and I turned to catch Max’s entrance through the swinging doors.

It wasn’t long before I was by Max’s side, swallowed in the vortex of limbs and alcohol he created. As we kept throwing shots back, our group grew and I found myself hooting and hollering with a couple of guys from Utah as Max was chatting up a tall curly haired blonde. She shouted in Max’s ear that she was a tattoo artist, and traced the tattoo on his wrist. I remember explaining to the Utah guys that New York was actually a nice place and no, no gay guy was going to come out of nowhere and molest them, that was stupid. I don’t know if they really believed me. Max was pulled away from a makeout session with the blonde, and now our group was back to its original quintet from the morning.

I got in Max’s car, as I wanted to avoid the tense shoulders Joaquin and Marco were carrying with them. We bumped Max’s music during the short ride to the motel, windows down. Max would occasionally drop his sunglasses at a stoplight, pat the side of his car, making the girls in the car next to him laugh as they rolled down their windows and asked where we were headed. I caught my reflection in the side mirror. My eyes were more sunken in than I had ever seen them. I looked up at the sky and saw the final streaks of dark pink being swallowed by the deep ocean night. The perfect canvas for the fireworks that started to pepper the air.

When Leo pulled in with his minivan, we could see Marco twisting in the passenger, hand raised to the backseat. We couldn’t hear anything, but we caught sight of Leo’s twitching mouth and narrowed eyes. The three got out of the car silently. Max had checked us all in earlier, and dolled out keycards.

Joaquin snatched his. Marco shoulder checked him when he did this.

Their girlfriends hadn’t texted them in hours. They should have landed four hours ago, and the concert was due to start in 30 minutes. Sierra said she hadn’t heard from them either. The plan was to change and head to the lake to watch the fireworks but Leo, Max and I weren’t dying to go upstairs with Joaquin and Marco. They were busy locking horns as they walked away, so we sat on the curb and smoked a joint.

“Are they always like that?” I asked them.

“Worse sometimes.”

“Way worse. One time they got the cops called on them.”

“Jesus.”

“But they’re fine. Marco loves Joaquin. Joaquin is too stubborn to admit it but he loves him too. Marco is the closest thing he has to family.”

We heard footsteps on pavement. Marco panting.

“Joaquin is fucking tripping bro. He starts yelling at me saying it’s my fault our girls are dogging us. Then I lose my shit and say it’s not my fault he lays mid pipe. Next thing I know he’s reaching in his duffel looking for his gun, and I just ran out of there.”

I felt the hair on my neck stand up as I stood and scanned over his shoulder at the motel lobby. I could spot the front desk, unmanned, alongside the vending machine and the elevator doors. The red number above the elevator ticked up to our floor.

Max took one last puff, then tossed the joint. Leo told Marco to get in the car and drive off, throwing him the keys. As he opened the minivan door, Joaquin sped walk through the lobby doors towards us, his hand in his pocket.

“Yo Joaquin, Joaquin, let’s talk okay.” Max stood his ground and had his hands up as he kept his voice even.

“J, J for real, let’s relax okay.”

“Get the fuck out of my way. I don’t have a problem with you two.”

He marched towards us, and kept his eye on Marco who was in the minivan driver’s seat, fiddling with the key, trying to get it in the ignition.

“GET OUT PUSSY.”

“Will you relax bro?”

I stood there with my arms crossed, wondering if I should reach into my pocket and dial 911.

Joaquin pulled out his gun, and pointed it in the direction of the driver’s side window. It was a small black piece.

“Joaquin.”

I didn’t have anything more than that. He looked my way and I could see his eyes were all pupil.

“Stay out of this.”

Max had closed the distance to him and twisted his wrist, the gun dropping to the ground. Leo was close behind and kicked it towards me, it spinning underneath a parked car to my left.

“Levi GRAB it and don’t let anyone have it.”

I sprinted and kneeled under. Everything in my field of vision was abundantly detailed. I could see the pebbled and cracked asphalt clearly, smell the oil leaking under the car.

“LET ME GO.”

Marco stepped out of the minivan and ran towards Joaquin, kicking him in the ribs as he struggled up out of Max’s grip.

“Marco stop.”

“FUCK HIM. WAVING A GUN IN OUR FACE?”

The two began to scrap, elbowing Leo and Max out of the way. I looked around and wondered how no one was witnessing this. The parking lot was half empty, but up above us I spotted a couple laughing and closing their balcony door as they turned to go back inside.

I never expected to hold my first gun in Idaho.

It was heavier and colder than I dreamt it would be. The moonlight caught my hand. I could see my tendons shifting as I caressed the barrel. I traced the underside along its curve and to the magazine. They designed it to be held one way and I resisted the urge to do so.

We were in a motel parking lot in Coeur d’Alene.

Red. White. Blue. The colors ran like wet ink. They bled into the dark water of the night sky. The air smelt of smoke. It rattled with pops and sizzles. In the street behind us, there were honks and hollering, beer bottles being smashed. An upside-down lawn chair was strewn in the bushes beside our parked cars. The balconies above us were empty. Only silhouettes gliding behind the curtains, backlit.

My phone vibrated in my pocket.

In front of me were two men with buzz cuts swinging at one another, and two curly haired men trying to keep them apart. When the gun was wrestled away from the shortest one, it was handed to me and I was instructed to keep it from everyone. This was because I was their guest of honor.

I had just met three of the four men 48 hours ago. They were two duos of best friends.

The taller combatant was pinned down by the one man I did know. The shorter one escaped the restraint of his own detainer and instead of taking advantage of his enemy lying on the ground—he turned and ran towards me.

I hopped on to the open bed of a truck, one leg springing up the other. I did not trust my hands with anything but handling their cargo.

“Give ME my FUCKING GUN BACK!”

I raised the gun high over my head as he tried to climb up. Then I kicked him square in his spit covered jaw.

A new round of fireworks began. I knew I could make the shot blend in with the pops. Or I could wait until the sizzle and make it stand out. Just once.

After all—they designed it to be used one way: to give final answers.

But they didn’t tell you which questions to use it for.

The two finally tired themselves out scrapping. Leo and Max were able to get them to sit down, their t-shirts torn and their faces cut up, bleeding.

“Sierra just texted me. She said they’re calling you. Congratulations you dumb fucks.” Leo waved his phone in front of their face.

Max turned to me and asked for the gun. He took it and told Joaquin he was going to put it in the safe in his car and give it back to him tomorrow once he was cooled off. He grabbed Joaquin up by the back of his t-shirt and dragged him to his car, told us he was going to take him to his apartment to sleep.

Leo, Marco and I walked up to the rooms. I rubbed the banister in the elevator, fingering the indent of a missing bolt. Marco entered his own room, the one he was meant to share with Joaquin. Leo played with the door handle, then leaned in and almost fell as he shoulder checked it open. I made for the shower. When I stepped out of the steam, Max was sitting on the bed and they were already at it.

“Oh stop with that shit. You know that’s how these two end up.”

“Not like this. This isn’t normal.”

“We’re not normal. That’s why we’re friends.”

Leo was pacing the room, banging on the wall and Max was slapping the bed, spit flying.

“Do you not see why you have to get out of here?”

“Fuck you and your crusade. Not everything is a sign to get out. Maybe you shouldn’t give up so easy on your friends.”

“These friends are gonna get you killed bro. Can’t you see that?”

We heard a knock on the door, which I answered, still in my towel. It was someone from the hotel asking us to keep it down. I apologized and closed the door.

“I know this has nothing to do with me, but I don’t think there’s…there’s any constructive conversations to be had tonight guys. Everyone is way too rattled.”

We could still hear fireworks outside.

Leo and Max looked at me, they looked everywhere in the room but at one another. Max stood up abruptly and walked through the door between the rooms to sleep in Marco’s room. Leo and I remained there, the sound of the AC sputtering as the fireworks finally died out.

Next morning, I expected a debrief first thing. Leo and I were still in bed when Max and Marco said goodbye with blank faces, sunglasses on. Max smacked Leo’s ass under the covers and the two giggled as he spun. They were going to pick up Joaquin and then head to the airport to pick up the girls who were due back from the concert. We were to meet them in Cheney later. When Leo finally awoke with a long stretch and groan, I tried to broach the topic.

“Yo what the fuck happened last night?”

“Don’t even get me started bro. Do you see why?”

He grabbed his phone and turned over. I grabbed my own and without looking up from his own, he asked me,

“Who ya texting?”

We hit a snag leaving CDA when the streets were closed off for the annual July 4th parade. The highlight of which was the world’s largest potato. There was no way this potato was real. It really pissed me off that they tried to pass it off as real. The potato was guarded by veterans shuffling along, saluting everyone. They were flanked by older women, wearing pink MAGA merch head to toe, and swinging batons. It took us half an hour to wait out the procession.

I vowed that I was going to stay sober that day. We made it to a house party in a sprawling suburb, none of the houses remotely the same architectural style, a mix of wood and brick, all with porches and fences. In a backyard full of tree stumps, Wade greeted me with a condensation covered glass of beer that read SOMEONE GET THIS BEER A GUY. I shook my head.

“I guess you’re not that guy.”

“Not today.”

We stood off to the side, near the wooden fence that had planks missing. There was a group of thirty or so Wazzu kids, running through sprinklers, playing beer pong and then crowding around for a die game on this rectangular wooden table. As I waited for them to explain it to me, I asked Wade if he knew what happened last night.

“Oh yea, the little tussle.”

“Little? Joaquin came out, fucking, Punisher style.”

“Ah. Well he wasn’t gonna shoot him.”

“I don’t know. The fact that it was even a possibility is insane.”

“What? You never seen a gun?”

“Not pointed at someone no.”

Wade reached down to his waistband and pulled out his gun. A silver revolver.

“Here. Point it at whoever you want. You’ll see what I mean. You won’t shoot it. You wouldn’t even dream of it. Unless you absolutely had to.”

I took the gun from him slowly, as he finished his beer. I looked down the sights and pointed it at him, my finger alongside, not on the trigger. It was heavier than Joaquin’s.

“Bang!” He laughed as he picked up the glass intended for me.

“See?” He said as I handed it back to him.

No—I didn’t see.

The day melted away as I discovered a prolific talent for this die game. You had a hand painted table with green, white and red target areas, like a dartboard. The player in possession jumped up and threw a single die in the air, hoping to make it bounce no more than two times and land in the opponent’s target areas, to score points. There were solo cups of beer in each corner, that netted you extra points. If it bounced off the table, the other team could juggle it on their foot and into their hand to force you to chug a beer. Wade and I paired up and ran the table for a good half hour.

“Who knew New York was gonna be so good at this?”

The group winnowed down and we migrated down the block to a park, where we ran 3 v 3 basketball for an hour. Someone was grilling in the house across. It turned out it was Cory’s stepdad’s house. They were away for the weekend.

Girls would run over burgers and hot dogs and soda. We’d play for 15 minutes, sit on the grass and munch on some food, brushing the crumbs to the side. Then someone would start dribbling lazily, someone else would join them shooting and rebounding, and 10 minutes later we’d be running another game. Rinse and repeat.

I was dying for a nap and at one point ended up sleeping in a hammock draped across two trees next to the court. In and out of consciousness, I caught fragments of a conversation between two of Wade’s frat brothers.

“Dude she got so pissed at me for faking a nut.”

“Why would you fake a nut?”

“I was dry. From before.”

“Dry dick. No nectar.”

Then endless laughter as I drifted back.

By the time I woke up it was already nighttime. There were stacks of brightly colored boxes on the lawn. A group had gone to do a big buy of fireworks. They offered me a few, but I recalled my childhood neighbor who had lost a thumb in an accident and passed. Marco shared my conviction and we stood by a tree as everyone got together in the cul-de-sac to start the ceremony.

“How you doing today?” He asked me.

“I should be asking you that.”

“Me? Nah. I’m used to that.”

“I can’t believe that’s something you can get used to.”

“Believe me in Yakima you can.”

“You mean all of you grew up like that?”

“Yea. Mostly. Leo a little less. I think all of us always wanted to protect him so we tried to help him avoid situations like that.”

I leaned against the bark and stretched my back, contorting my spine. The ridges digging in brought deeper and deeper exhales.

“I don’t know. I mean I’m fine. I just don’t know how you guys stay friends for so long with all that hanging over your head.”

“What hanging?”

I changed the topic. “It feels like Leo and Mark are always at each other’s throats.”

“You shoulda heard them earlier.”

“What happened?”

“Mark thought Leo got some bullshit call at the end of a game and pushed him. Then the two started swinging at each other, and Leo said he was sorry he ever invited him to live in Chicago together. Mark said as if he ever was going to go.”

I felt my throat tighten.

“Don’t worry about those two. They always make up. They’re inseparable. Even if Leo isn’t here, they’ve got each others back.”

“But do you think it’s good for Max to stay here?”

I now felt Leo’s anxiety in my own chest.

Marco picked up a couple crushed beer cans from the lawn.

“I don’t think Max’s problems have to do with where he is. I think they’re in his head. Yea maybe moving could help...but it could also make him worse.”

Cody and Casey ran out of the house with drivers. They left the front door wide open. As Wade and co. lit the fireworks, Cody and Casey started ripping golf balls towards the mountains. They would fly over the chain link fence of the park and disappear. The girls cheered at each swing. The sound of the iron thwacking against the ball sometimes lined up perfectly with the pops of the fireworks.

I went inside and found a dirty, sagging sofa in the basement to keep sleeping. At some point I was stirred by the sound of Leo’s and Max’s voices. Laughs.

They stumbled through the basement and flicked on the lights.

“Who’s this?”

“Who is this?”

The two were holding each other up.

“Ahhhh we were looking for you.”

“You fucker. What, you can’t hang?”

I gave them a drowsy smile and they tumbled onto the sofa along side me.

“Why don’t you two stay here and take a breather?”

“Nah.”

“Nah.”

“Gotta keep moving.”

“Let’s go find those girls from ZTA.”

“Good idea.”

“We’re coming back for you later.”

“With friends.”

“Dimes.”

Their voices rang out as they climbed the steps. I heard one of them slip and their laughter rang out. The lights were still on, but I found it easy to sleep.

Leo woke me up early the next day. He had slept in the bedroom in the basement, huddled next to Max. It got exceptionally cold down there and I was lucky to pillage some towels from the basement bathroom midway through the night.

I went to go say goodbye to Max, who lay there shirtless in his briefs, and had a crazy case of bedhead. He sat up immediately when he heard my voice, although he was swaying.

“Brother. I hope you know what you saw was a trailer.”

“Jesus, I think I might have to tap out then.”

“Oh come onnnn. You’re a Florida boy. I thought y’all went harder.”

“Believe me, we got nothing on you guys.”

“You got Joaquin and Marco?” Leo appeared in the doorway. Max rubbed his eyes and nodded.

“Hey, listen to me. I wanna read some of that writing man.”

“You will, you will.” I tried to keep my voice down.

“What writing?” Leo called out.

“Shut up. And look. I know you don’t need it, but good luck with the startup. Try not to forget us when you’re rich.”

“Oh come on.”

“I’m serious. And same with this guy. Make sure he doesn’t get a big head.” He pointed at Leo.

“I think you’d do a much better job than me at that.” I looked him the eye.

He kept his eyes steady.

“No, no I think I’d hold him back. For now at least. I got some things to take care of here and then I’ll join up with y’all.”

“Well if you ever need to talk, to you know, someone who isn’t part of your world, I promise I’m your guy. I mean it Max.”

He gulped and pulled me in. I noticed a tattoo of a swallow on his collarbone. I traced my finger on it. He smiled and nodded.

I left Max and Leo alone to say their goodbyes. In the living room upstairs, Joaquin and Marco were on the half-deflated air mattress. I shook them awake gently, and told them we were leaving.

“Do me a favor you two. Try to keep each other alive. The world is fucked up enough as it is without your best friend trying to kill you.”

“This pussy would never have the balls to kill me.” Marco smiled as he dapped me up.

“I’d skin you alive.” Joaquin shook my hand.

“Ay, you ever come back out here, you come kick it with us homie.” Marco grabbed my wrist.

“And when you guys make it East, hit me up.”

The two looked at each other and smiled, then rolled back into bed. Leo made it up there, his eyes glassy and bonked their two heads together like coconuts.

Later that day we made it back to Yakima, and after dropping off our luggage and showering at Leo’s house, went to go pick up his friend Teddy and head to Spurs, one of two bars in the town.

“Teddy is uh, he’s you know.”

“What?”

“I don’t actually know what he has. He was born premature and I think he’s got some other, disabilities. He’s a sweetheart.”

He was indeed a sweetheart and was impossible to beat at in Uno and Connect Four. We sat there sipping beers, watching the locals play pool and stand around and smoke as they looked up at the TVs playing local news. The bar was massive, taking up half of the warehouse it sat in. The other half was a Lays distribution center.

“So Leo. Chicago huh? You and Max?”

“I don’t know if Max is coming Teddy. Not right away at least.”

“What man? Why?”

“I don’t know. He said he has to take care of some stuff.”

“Oh that’s bullshit. You know it.”

Leo finished his beer.

“I don’t know it Teddy. And even if I did, what would I do? He’s a grown man.”

“Drag him out of here. Don’t you think he should drag him out of here?” Teddy tapped me on the shoulder.

“Hell I’ll help him.”

“See, he’ll help him. And me too. I’ll grab him by the dick.” We laughed.

“Tell you what Teddy. You help me get him out of here. Next time he comes to hang out with you, tell him he needs to leave.”

“You’re damn right.”

We dropped Teddy off and made it just in time for Leo’s friend Luis’s campaign event. It was hosted at the only brewery in town, with dozens of beers on tap on the wall and stools made out of casks. Luis was a year older than Leo, and running for city council. I cornered him into a conversation about adding a Chipotle to the town, which he took seriously and pledged to me even after I revealed I was not a constituent.

“No you have a point. It really puts us on the map as a serious place.”

“What do you think of Leo wanting to leave Yakima?”

“Hey. To each his own. I love it here and I can’t ever imagine leaving. I want to be part of making this as prosperous as it can be.”

I looked around as he shook hands with a few donors who were leaving.

He turned back and leaned in to me.

“Plus the girls here? I take them to the hotel one town over, where I know the owner and get a deal. And if I really get tired of them, then I just fly down to Mexico City and I got my connect there.”

Leo and I ate our final meal together in Watopo. We had a birria pizza, sitting at the only table, under a creaking fan, facing a big sign that read QUE DIOS BENDIGA MIS CLIENTES, MI FAMILIA, MI RESTAURANTE, MI COMUNIDAD, Y MI MUNDO. I believed them.

I thanked Leo for the weekend. He nodded and scarfed down the last slice, his mouth staying open as he breathed out the heat.

“How you feeling?”

He pursed his lips. “Fine. Ready to get out of here.”

We sat in the restaurant a little longer, scrolling on our phones.

VI. DEPARTURES

I sat in our office in New York two years later, approving the compensation packages for three new hires when I got a call on WhatsApp.

It was Marco. Other than a few photos sent back and forth the week after my trip, I hadn’t talked to him since then.

I picked up and looked out of the window at the Brooklyn skyline, the sunset draping over McCarren. Fiddling with a green crystal on my desk, one my mom had gifted me when we moved into the office, I listened.

Max had used a shotgun, a gun I had not held yet.

He had done it in his apartment in Portland, where he had moved six months before with the girl from Wapato. They had both lost their jobs the week before. His girlfriend had left him alone for the afternoon to go score.

He had called the police to let them know, so they could arrive before she did.

The final video he posted on his TikTok was of his dog, a beagle that looked as if it was the recipient of all the final reserves of goodwill and selflessness. Shiny coat, bright eyes. He was out on their lawn, sniffing a dead bird.

We hung up and I tapped over to Leo’s contact. The call rang and rang. I put the phone down, and could feel the crystal warm in my hand.

It took me two months to get Leo to respond back to me.

When he did, he said we could remain friends so long as we never spoke of it again. I honored his wish, but now I wonder what he will say of this when he reads it.

Hi cowgirl,

It’s me, your cowboy.

I made it back home and the thermometer confirms what I already knew.

I’m wondering why we waited so long? And even when we were within touching distance, you made me wait a little longer. A bad hair day you said. You had to start all over.

Just like you had to keep redoing your lips. Old Hollywood, darkly lined and slightly overdrawn. One look at your face and everyone knows you’re a doll. Too bad they don’t know you collect daggers on your wall.

Seven months. So what’s an extra forty minutes? I read all your letters the night before my flight. I remembered why it was easy to make you #1.

When I slid in the passenger, I took one look at you with your boot up, knee resting on the window, and said get out of the car. I’m driving.

I remember how shaky your hands were when you handed me the keys. How I had to ask you to speak up over my favorite reggaeton you were blasting. I love how you purr but I do need to hear your words baby.

I chauffeured us to all the places you had written to me about, written to me from.

The shaded plaza with the fountain the kids were playing in. The Yemeni cafe with the rug you love, where you recounted the reverie of Ramadan to me.

The bookstore in Bishop Arts where you pouted when you came out of the bathroom and I had already discovered the Spanish section you wanted to show me.

The dive bar with the cigarette vending machine and the Christmas lights still up, where you tracked billiard chalk on your college ruled paper. I couldn’t stand that we were playing cornhole as a team, meaning you were on one side and I was on the other, and you had that one guy who was showing you how to throw, and I kept finding your eyes, and finally, the people we were playing with were so drunk I made up a score so they could think the game was over.

Your mom called you and you huffed at her and told her you were out, playing games with your friends. When you hung up, you said the only lie was the last letter.

As we got closer to the lake, the sun long gone, we could now roll the windows down without baking. You started stroking my arm. Telling me how you were a late bloomer. You just graduated college, after a false start, only realizing at 20 you needed the extended release, even though you hated the cotton mouth.

I did a double take when I saw the street sign we blew by was called Lovers Lane. Sometime long ago, when the Pony Express was all over ESPN, some kid whipping his ’64 Mustang, with his top down, and his summer sweetheart to his right was feeling just like me.

We got out of the car and you asked me to pull down the branch of the magnolia tree so we could take in the scent of its flower, which I thought was funny since we’re almost the same height. But I love the way women play.

I wanted to take you down to the bench we sat at hours before, where you told me you hadn’t seen a firefly since you were a little girl. I thought to myself and realized I hadn’t seen one since I was a little boy. You said it was a prayer of yours to see one again this summer.

At that time, there were Mexican families behind us with their water guns and their laughter and their cake smeared faces, but now it was only frogs, crickets and the moon.

I wanted to take you down to the bench, but you said open the trunk.

Wow.

It was the painting I bought. Well, put a deposit on. And you were showing it to me, letting me hold it, letting me drink it in, but uh-uh, no pictures. You were telling me, like you captioned in the Polaroid you sent, that it was mine, all mine.

Then you made me put your new decal on. After all it was my fault you got rear ended, on the way to the post office to drop off my letter.

Do they only blossom like this in the Heartland? I know it isn’t your hometown—that’s 6000 miles away. But your head is full of old Haggard, you know all the backroads off 80, and I can still hear the rhythm of your steel studded boots. You’re the boss’s daughter too, so don’t pretend like you don’t know everyone at the restaurant isn’t in love with you. Yet you used to make fake Christmas lists in elementary school, and your Albanian’s no good in the mosque. So I do see why you wore real life chainmail at your last birthday party.

We made it to that bench. And that’s when you decided to show me what was in the tote I was lugging around for you, with the keffiyeh tied around it.

A tiny knife, adorable. A tiny sewing kit, of course. A tiny eyeglass repair kit, nice. Then that pack of blue Bicycle cards you decided to teach me then and there how to do a spring with.

The ducks flapping away, in the dark pool below us. We fumbled around in the grass for a Jack that fell. Then I felt your clammy hand. You giggled and said you were sorry. I let you feel mine so you wouldn’t be. And then.

A firefly.

Where?

In the reeds.

Where?

There.

Oh my god, I see it.

You looked down,

and up,

and I looked down,

and up,

and down

and before we knew it we were in your backseat and I understood what you really meant by late bloomer.

My hand on your neck I liked, but what I liked more was burrowing through all those curls to find the three gold hoops on your ear and letting you hear my breath getting shorter and shorter and shorter.

What I liked most was when you were nestled against me, thigh wrapped around my torso, scratching the mosquito bites on your ankle, and you whispered in the dark. You said I made you feel safe. So so safe.

You kept your ear against my chest for a long time and I thought about when you wrote me that it was your dream to fall in love in a way that made his heartbeat spell out your name. I don’t know if you thought it was sweat or if you knew what fell on your head was the one tear I couldn’t hold back.

I wanted to tell you that just the week before, I was sunglasses on, walking through the rain, the same moon but only half full, headed to meet a friend who was broken in two, hoping he’d have enough blood for the both of us. No matter how hard I tried that night, I couldn’t find my pulse. I prayed that I would wake up seven more times, that I would be here with you and my dream would come true.

As I finally slid into my own bed at dawn, your text came in. Normally I would be upset you broke our code of letters only. Instead I felt a flutter when I saw your message. You were upset that I only promised you a night. You sent me a video you took of yourself the day before, having just gotten ready for graduation. Seven seconds, but I couldn’t fall asleep for another hour. I know every frame by heart. The song looping in my headphones was talking about una diablita en Prada, and you were there with your tan slingbacks. Still I said, let’s stick to the plan and see where it goes, knowing I was going to cave in all along. I wanted to tell you all this.

Instead I didn’t pick up my pen once and we have almost no photos.

There were Half Price books, and CDs, and bubbles on Greenville Ave. Quick trips to Quik Trip and your hand always searching for mine. The scent of cucumber, your makeup on my shoulder, that light blue dress with the straps I could never figure out, your metal moon necklace that was way heavier than I thought. The grassy knoll where I couldn’t stop laughing when you put the bugles on and saluted. Showing me pictures of the paper cranes hanging from the ceiling in your room. You said you knew how they felt.

Then we were on the way to the airport. This time it was you who couldn’t look me in the eyes. You just wrote in my notebook, tracing the same word over and over and over. I gave you one last kiss and at my gate I looked at what you read. You wrote that you had so much to say you couldn’t actually write anything. And then you wrote a prayer, that we would meet again.

As I stared out the window, at the oil fields and football stadiums, I wondered if you were the wish or the talisman. You shone so bright it’s hard to tell. There is something you are, I once was. Once upon a.

Like I wrote you way back, I believe in fairy tales too. Would that be okay, if that’s what I do? Save all my goodness for you. Not that it makes our villainy any less true. Believe me I know darling, that redemption takes two.

There’s a constellation for now, but perhaps when the ink is dry, you are the Lone Star.

Sincerely,

Levi Lopez

WRITER’S NOTE:

This is the piece I performed at my first reading.

i’ve been going through some ****, but it’s alright

There’s a quiet tearing in my back. My bones rearranging themselves for flight. Wings arrive gradually, then all at once.

A couple months ago I told my mom I was mid-air—couldn’t see where I jumped from, couldn’t see where I’d land.

Now?

Following His flight path. Savoring it.

came out swinging doors, posted in the kitchen, ***** on counters

It started at the airport. Flights to New York—cancelled, delayed.

Not mine.

As soon as we were airborne, I dropped my seat back and pulled out the manila envelopes. I loved the crinkle. Fiddling with the brass clasps.

There were three envelopes:

1. Manuscript — Campus Fiction (title + prologue)

2. Experimental — the codex in progress

3. Study — currently Palahniuk’s craft essays

I spent all three hours of the flight underlining, highlighting, taking notes.

As we descended, the beanie clad guy next to me—green hoodie (IT’S FUCKING SAINT PATRICK’S DAY)—tapped my shoulder.

“What do you do?”

“I’m a writer.”

“A writer? Like… you write? I mean what? Do you write?”

“I’m working on my book.”

“Damn. That’s fire. I didn’t know writers were still a thing.”

blowing all these *****, arguing with my accountant

On the way to the law office, I opened my illustrator’s email.

He sent over a proof for the second novella cover. Tangier Blues. I tapped my foot as I scanned and zoomed in on the pixels.

Close—but not there yet. It needed a little more restraint between the Young Man and Levi Lopez. The cat couldn’t look too sickly. Covers are Hollywood. They sell. Get you in your seat and then the truth plays.

My lawyer isn’t just mine—he’s ours. The family lawyer. Honorary fourth brother. Gregarious, ravenous Italian. Consigliere powered on equal parts uppers and downers. Texts like everything could be subpoenaed.

We started with a Chocolate croissant, split three ways. Big S (the lawyer), L (our rave loving long haired friend). I brushed the crumbs off his desk as the two talked their fantasy basketball lineups.

A Kramer-like office neighbor walked in, told us to watch Bulgonia. Then he pointed at L, told him he looked just like Jesse Plemmons. Big S pulled Jesse Plemmons up on his second monitor, turned it towards us. We all burst out laughing. Except L. He glared at Kramer Esq. as he bobbled out of the office, closing the door behind him.

L made some vague excuse, sniffed and slapped his knee before he stood. He was on the clock. On the city’s dime, and his three hour lunch break was coming to a close.

Now it was just Big S and I. A quick stop at the gyro truck across the street. Astoria’s finest.

Then back to business, me melting into the chair. Big S snatching a Post It from his computer monitor, furrowing his eyebrows as he read it. He mumbled to himself then crumpled it, tossed it over his shoulder. A quick clearing of the throat and he switched into counsel mode.

He had the answer to my question from the week before. In Campus Fiction I was going to incorporate three real life events that were controversial at minimum, ******* at most. The book was mostly fiction, but I knew braiding in these visceral moments would give it real voltage.

“So I looked up some cases. In 2007, Random House…”

“But it really happened that way.”

“Sure. But would you classify him as a public figure?”

“What defines that?”

“New York Times settled this way back. Basically…”

“Fuck.”

“I’d recommend—”

“Allude. I like that. That’s sexier.”

He fired off an email to a client, as I readied the manila with the manuscript.

“There. Now I can bill them for our convo.”

The only lawyer I like is mine. And I suppose whatever future lawyers my publisher sics on me.

I enjoy having an authority figure try to wrangle me in. And deep down, I know they love it too.

I started off March reading The Autobiography of Alice B. Tolkas. I was entranced by the collaborative atmosphere of the Parisian scene. These painters, writers, musicians, clowns—they were constantly on. In and out of their studios, salons, dinners, exhibitions. Sharing their work in progress, testing out new theories, talking techniques, breaking traditions. Inspiring one another through equal parts affirmation and disagreement.

I wanted that.

So the night before I left, I prepared the manuscript.

Ivory 120gsm paper. Baby blue electric Smith Corona. Schneider markers. Label maker.

I went to bed at 3am, and woke 4 hours later for my flight.

It was time to start the roadshow.

The book is not just the words on the paper. It’s the whole experience—starting with the presentation.

I let Big S read it silently. Then I had him read it out loud to me. I snatched the papers from him and let him talk as I began to make corrections to the opening.

I printed out a new first paragraph, then taped it over. Whiteout to edit the rest throughout. Then we we were on our way to dinner with the rest of the brothers.

they say I been talking too much about how I been ******

We hopped out the blacked out. To that new Mexico City spot, the one on the corner of Delancey.

My brother M knows the chef—he knows everyone. For obvious reasons.

Table flooded: beef tartare, crickets, lamb burgers, squash, squid, tostadas, mushrooms, horchata soft serve, chocolate cake, etc.

No manners. Just elbows and heavy exhales.

You know it’s a real feat of culinary abundance when our quintet taps out. Despite repeatedly asking him to slow down, the chef would not relent.

I just remember wanting to be horizontal, but M made me fight through the food coma and talk to the chef.

He told me about his years couch surfing. Dropping out of culinary school because he didn’t respect his teachers. Working anywhere that would take him.

Another plate came out of the kitchen and he swiped it from the server to point out to us how he was experimenting. Thin slices of carne asada, almost translucent at the edges, fanned over a citrus-dressed summer salad—jícama, shaved fennel, a little mango. He pointed out the cut first, how fine it had to be to take the marinade without getting lost in it. Then the glaze—a light tamarind and lime reduction, brushed just enough to catch the heat. Even as he explained it I could see his gears turning, how he was going to head back and try again.

My manuscript moved around the table, my brother’s snatching it from one another (J the oldest, M the second, me the third, C the youngest). Big S was explaining to them what I had already infused him with.

I explained the process to the chef:

Handwritten → typed on computer → typewritten → handwritten again → performed as spoken word for my house DJ/producer best friend→ transcribed → typewritten.

Oh and typed again in Big S’s office just a couple hours before.

The chef’s eyes widened as I wiped some powder off the page he had in his hand. By this point I was out of my seat, standing next to him.

Yup yup, there was my reverence for the evangelical preacher register. The repetition, the incantation. After all I wrote it primarily by candlelight.

I alluded to the allusion that Big S said I should allude to. Now everyone’s eyes widened (except for Big S who held a wry smile).

The chef was being summoned back.

He turned to me and wished me good luck with the book. You got this.

I wished him good luck with the restaurant. You got this.

and I’m sorry, I ain’t got no time to call you

I wish I could paint you more of the week.

But there were 3 Os (not all by ourselves). There were 30 hours of sleep total.

So here’s a collage—straight from my notebook and camera roll. No edits, just redactions and labels.

ROMANCE/FRiENDSHiP

• are you going to call my bluff, or will I call yours?

• promise me one day we’ll give up all this wordplay, because the real miracle is that the love was always here 2 stay

• “me motiva y me dice que no pare, que tengo que darle, en la música enfocarme”

  • that’s all I want, a woman to say to focus on your writing and mean it. forever. Is that too much?

• I think we could paint good moving scenes, tableau vivants, me and her

• You can leave with love

• She would love to know that I ended the night reading her letter

• Looking at notes from *****’s morning routine in the bathroom—intimacy and insecurity (one and the same no?)

• My mind isn’t made up so I’ll let her do it

• ***** went to Ementa in Lisbon too!

• **** would adore Elizabeth Street Garden, maybe she can come to the city this summer

• Give them time and space and pain to convince themselves because once they do—together you will fill the vacuum of fear and longing with _______?

• “All Life’s grandeur begins with a girl in the summer”

• buy *** a postcard, send ******* a playing card, and what kind of gift for ****?

• *** raw notes: “she has a fat mirror and she doesnt know it (lol), threw up in my favorite purse, **** is a tattletale (lmao), this place is like a tequila dungeon, he’s so hot but his IG is such an ick, can you believe these guys run their texts through ChatGPT and dont expect me to realize?”

• text **** the picture of *** and I

• ****’s reply lmaooo—some women are so naturally flirtatious that it circles back around to meaning nothing although I suppose I’m projecting because I know I can exude that energy as well

• Why can I rarely fully reveal myself to one woman?

• I suppose I’m a player in the purest sense of that word. I do not do it for validation but for enjoyment and risk. I like to play with feelings, including my own—until something breaks open and I say ok, this is where I’m meant to stay.

• I want to light my Palo Santo and I want her to lick it

• The way ****** moved next to me while filming that TikTok in the mirror, write about that

  • no no, write about how it made you feel, not just what she was doing

  • and next time I wanna pick the song

ART/SPiRiTUALiTY

• draw a mandala

• To see it all is power and pain

• work on your handwriting

• ARTISTIC STATEMENT FOR THE BOOK (where to put?): We must liberate ourselves. I know you feel it too. Full of desire & drive but lost. What do we search for? I do not know, but I know we are missing something. I promise to stay by your side as we search for it.

• mini moleskin size, paperback, pulp illustration, cigarette packaging, novella of first 10k words of Campus Fiction, luxurious pilot sold auction style, odds and evens different covers and some words, people buy their favorite number, only 100 copies ($100+ per copy), ticket to our parties/salons

• “shadows and dust—I dwell in possibility” (*****’s diary entry)

• Keep rewriting the intro until it feels like someone slowly lowering you down into warm water

• Fitzgerald just tells the same story over and over and over again—how he won over his wife by fulfilling a grand ambition....yet his stories are always tragic, so does he regret it all? Or he cannot move on, is there no higher high for him?

• What is my story I tell over and over? What question am I asking over and over and answering with more and more questions?

• Miley did say promote before it’s official so they have no choice but to make it happen

• Denzel did say “I’m leaving with something!”

• Front row, court side, ring side, on set, first class

• The seven figure advance is simple arithmetic—if you want me (the future incarnate) today, it is the price to pay

• Tyler Hays just does whatever he wants his whole life, down to constructing his own tools and look at fulfilled and successful he is—PEOPLE LOVE TYRANTS IN ART

• The star knows the ecstasy is in living as the dream, eternal fantasy just out of fingertip reach but real and grounded to him and his

• Pacific Gunplay should be the title of the **** story

• Also good reminder that 90% of plots are stolen

• Just keep asking questions that have questions as answers, that’s all a timeless story is

• The longer you can be with the incomplete, the better it will become

• I wish to enter into an intimate confidence with the world but also to hold myself closely with Time at arm’s length so that I disappear and leave them all with a holy smoke and mirror…and the echoes of an eternal embrace

• “My wish would be that painting were not fiction, but life itself, in order to transform it”

• Wrestling with and riding the raw material of life

• What is my story I tell over and over? It aligns with the age we are in, the trans humanist future…when you can become anything, what will you choose to be?

• It’s the only honest story I can tell because my life is not one of struggling with formation or ascension, but rather stewarding power...and wondering if I am writing myself or discovering myself?

• What is the audience trusting you to unveil? What are they trusting you to satisfy?

• The beauty of believing in God is there is never any budget, never any limit

• God as posture and protection

• Light does not need to be searched for

• There is no high better than the flow state

• QUAVO SINATRA

• Cruel Intentions, such a good bad movie and I can see why she said it was like my book

  • Honest virgin versus deceitful slut, eternal battle (inside and out across all of us)

BEST FRiENDS/FAMiLY

• The beauty of kicking it with a ****** is there is never any budget, never any limit

• Sherpa jacket in the office, ** asking me how I’m so tan

• ***** looks so stressed, talk to dad about it

• **** is going to get hurt real soon, but he doesn’t want to see what’s coming so like a good friend I can only wait to comfort him when it happens

• Could I ship that ceramic to mom? Or just wait till next time she’s home.

• I love that * loves to work out as much as me

• Take *** to Silence Please, Pageant Portrait and BDDW gallery

• **** hitting on his customers this morning (“I forgot, I was supposed to give you guys a little Christmas special”) lmaooo

• **** is like Gatsby, a patron of mine—he keeps me in his apartment, writing away, a living performance art piece for all to observe and collaborate with

  • The guy side of ideal traits is done, get more girls to answer honestly

  • And try to get guys to answer beyond the obvious

• *****’s convo on getting an ED from calorie tracking with grandmother, fascinating

• 826 NYC, Straight Street Orlando, Panthera, my big 3 to shoutout

• Buy book to leave at *’s to start oral tradition of reading to people like Friday night with **** and her friends

• I choose to love my family without managing them. I do not absorb what is not mine. I can hear but I do not need to fix.

• Do we need an intervention for dad?

• Family gossip isn’t so bad I guess, so long as it’s well intentioned

• I miss Sophie so much, I love how little and evil and self absorbed she is. I’ll never feel fully at peace anywhere unless I know I come home to her

CiTY LiFE

• so little sleep, yet more energy than ever

• Thursdays at Soho Grand lmao

• ****** the plug at Waiting On A Friend, he said let’s go play Twister Mister

• People really love drunk driving don’t they? I haven’t in so long and I never will again...but I get it. The thrill. It’s fun and the thought of ending it all at that speed. I feel the goosebumps right now.

• The drugs don’t do anything...your own brain always shines through (or brings you down if that’s where you are at naturally)

• Sopranos episode as a lullaby every night

• Read Carrie

• Seeing cats up for adoption make me so sad

• Beautiful weather this first day of spring

• Wet hair, body butter, honks and tourists milling about outside the window, one foot resting on top the other

• Last night during Flashing Lights when Kanye said “straight from the page of your favorite author” and * pointed to me

• Gym, smoothie, sauna, massage combo is elite

• Overheard a girl in line at the coffee shop: “I really want that but I need a reason to get it”

• Ask **** tonite about party promoter specifics, have him show you his Apple note to work into tomorrow’s scene experiment

• Biking the money tree home, I love New York

• Guy who hopped over garbage bags on sidewalk but kept playing harmonica

• I understand what **** said about the sex appeal of tall buildings

• Spend tomorrow walking down Mercer recording videos and taking notes since that is the main street Campus Fiction takes place on

Lately I’ve been obsessed with the novel as an experience.

The art is not only the final work. The art also includes: the making of, the sharing, the feedback, the oral tradition, the marketing, the artist’s persona. The art is living.

I’ve been handwriting first, then revising on the computer, then reading aloud and transcribing, then finishing at the typewriter.

Before I spent a week in the city, I was thinking about Gertrude Stein’s Parisian salons and their collaborative energy.

So I made a manuscript of the prologue—and began the roadshow.

THE TOOLS

THE MANUSCRiPT

A scanned PDF of all the pages follows:

Read more

INTRODUCiNG

It's reality TV baby

With the stars and the stripes

‍
Easy money and fast cars

Life that's twin turbo charged
‍

All it takes is a murder charge

The old you isn't welcome here
‍

We need raw, uncut, unfiltered

No fear, crystal clear


This is the real world

The new boy, the new girl


Champagne and pearls and dancing things

Diamond rings for the ones that sing


The spotlight, center stage

That's what it's all about


You dance to your own rhythm

Go on now, show out
‍

That's how it all works out

No doubt

MiLAGRO MíA

Me gusta lamar las chispas de nuestro amor—quiero volverme siego con tu luz.

This was the summer I realized I had Time. So much of Time—that it was still spring. You cried when I had told you I wanted to die young. And through your grace, you held a mirror to me and I saw that a long life of mine would be worth living.

This was the summer the apartment got bigger and the money got taller. The air conditioning didn’t work that first month and all we did was fuck and eat and laugh and cry. We were addicted to the heat. You taught me how to splash water on my face. I taught you how to drive it like you stole it. We had to shock ourselves into relaxing. Ice on the neck, breathe deep and reset the circuitbreaker.

I remember the time you came at the crescendo of the M train. We had the door open with the wind coming in—but it wasn’t enough. I’d sip wine on the balcony and see you through the looking glass. I couldn’t help but think of the future. My naps were on the roof and I was golden brown by Memorial Day. With the watermelon and the tequila and the Cherry On Top. The mango salsa on the white couch and your tan lines that kept me awake.

We were sweating and sweating and sweating and loving every minute of it. I felt like I was sucking the poetry right out of you. I got on my knees and asked God to keep me here on Earth with a life like this.

But you know how shooting stars work. I could see it in your eyes, the fear that the wave we were surfing would one day crash right over us. The most I could promise was to to search for your hand in the water.

The whole time I’ve known that you are my last chance to not live amongst the clouds. The only woman to make me feel mortal. My heart beats for you, my blood is red for you. I am here.

It’s good baby, what we got. It’s great. Let’s just keep the love coming. Masks off—two naked players.

I want this summer eternal.

SEiS

“I am a terraformer,” said the boy. He sat in the sand building new worlds.

“Look at how pretty the sky is,” said the girl. She let the waves crash at her feet.

“Look at my castle. I built it for you.”

“Look at the blue, look at the pink.”

The boy was little and scared. The girl was little and scared. They both liked to escape—each in their own ways.

“I don’t need the sky. I could make a better one.”

“I don’t need you to make me a sky when there is a perfectly beautiful one right there.”

“I’ll show you.”

“Just let me show you. Look up.”

The boy pouted and rested his elbows on his knees. The girl sighed and walked over.

“It’s a very nice castle. I feel safe in it.”

The boy remained silent before looking up at her.

“Do you really?”

“Yes, I do.”

“I even made a little balcony for the cat.”

“She’ll like it very much.”

“I made the floor checkered, like you like.”

“I noticed, I love it. Only you could build this castle.”

The girl added a shell she had in her pocket to the entryway of the castle.

“Okay now let’s go look at that sky. Together.”

The boy and the girl held hands as they walked along the beach. The boy followed the girl’s finger to the sky. He wanted to make something bigger than the sky, something she would notice without him asking. Just for her.

What did the girl want?

BONNiE AND

Si muero mañana, tu fuiste la unica.

Bullet through the window, this story is about two kids in love.

She complains he turns colors in his sleep. She can’t sleep and he can’t sleep enough. So they never have enough time together.

So he commits a crime, and now they’re on the run. Awake and against the world.

Ah, now they’re really in love. Under the trees in each other’s arms, they feel safe. That’s cause trees have earned their size.

But the moon, Miss Sonya, urges them to confess.

The sound of the wind chimes sets the bluebirds free.

They share their last breath. Now, they are together forever. You see: they made a light.

Love lives in the echoes but it starts with a bang. Only the lucky ones have it end with one too.

WRiTER’S NOTE

I was unable to finish this story for many months. Capturing Medusa is no easy feat. Recently, I met Diotima and she unfroze me. The words could not stop flowing out.

PROLOGUE WARNiNG

This is a ghost story.

A love story.

A thriller.

It is an exorcism.

A cleansing.

A confession.

It is a man drawing the line for himself, so that all future ███████████████████████████████████████████████████. Which we all know really means—to make sense of the versions of myself I have been outrunning.

This summer was the end of the beginning. I came alive as a fugitive. It was the only way to murder what I had to. I was ████████████████████. I was spending money like I couldn’t stand it, ███████████████that cost me my sanity.

It is not that I have not loved, ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████...but I have been the rawest. The kind that makes all other times feel like the cover band. The type that ████████████████████.

The issue is that that I have often hurt ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. I arrive, I awaken ████████ , I give a taste of ████████ but I ████████████████████.

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

██████████████████████████████.

██████████████████████████████.

████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████?

It is only words that have saved me. Reading—my escape hatch, ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████ No one can touch me. I cannot see myself. I cannot find myself. It is a sweet, sweet relief.

And of course—writing. Releasing all my electricity into ████████████████████████████. When you picture me writing, picture a man carving ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. I am violently etching ██████████████████████████████ with the hopes that it will stop me from bursting open.

Most of the people in my life have been drawn to me for my words and my worlds. ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████. I yearn, they yearn.

But being a writer means people bring you their words the way they bring a doctor their pain. Asking you to interpret. To dance. To spar. To soothe. To help them find the answers. To say what they cannot say.

I exhaust.

I long for connections that do not demand meaning or introspection. That do not ask me to carry the weight of someone’s reflection.

It is like they have gone their whole lives blind, and they want to rip the eyes out of my head and into their own. So they may finally witness.

They also try to define you. Perhaps the spotlight I put on them is too much at times. They grab for it and shine it right in my face. How does that feel? ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████I honor you without control. Without possession. An Orphic love. Can you please do the same for me?

My writing does not describe, it █████. ██████████████████████████████████████████████████.

Or so I thought. Until lately, my words began attracting ██████████████████████████████.That █████ me. That shattered the house of illusions I had constructed.

And I followed their guidance…deeper and deeper into my heart. To the truth.

There he was. The little boy. Waiting to be picked up and held. To be told that there was nothing wrong with how much he felt. But to also be taught that just because he loved the world so deeply did not mean he had to grasp for every bit of beauty and hold on to it with such ferocity. Affection without grounding scorches. He desires so badly to be one with the flame, with the source.

There, there.

██████████████████████████████ ████ ██████████████████████████████ ████ ██████████████████████████████ ████

██████████████████████████████ That a tender heart needs an iron frame. That only he can make sense of himself, and bloodletting through his connections is no way to █████████

The problem with being good with words, with getting everything you decree—is you never stop to ask yourself what you actually want. You become addicted to the forward motion, the spell making, the manifestation.

The first 27 years of my life, my words led to me ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

They’ve led me far, far away from myself. No more. ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Enough about me.

The stage is set. The writer has cleared his altar. I have come to you on my knees, with my chin held high, asking ████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

Now we speak of an enchanting woman. I know not what I mean to her. But in reading this, you will know what she means to me. A mythic mirror.

How in the theater of a weekend in Belgium, it was she that had the courage to claw the mask off my face. ██████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████████

THE STORY

She liked the way I wrote about her home. Told me exactly which piece it was that hooked her.

It was the final piece I wrote for my ex.

I invited her to be my Bonnie. But I was already gone.

This was the piece:

That was how she found me. On this site you are now reading this on.

We started texting, sending voice notes. Each one longer than the last, as if our voices were learning to linger with each other.

She was making videos too. With that curly hair of hers. Shoulder length, volume that framed her DOLL FACE. Looking like a rockstar’s girlfriend, straight out of a magazine from the 70s. Especially when she wore her headbands.

Everything about her felt lived in. Authentic, untreated. Her aesthetic had patina. It was earned.

A sort of style that drew me in because it was oh so different to the American girls I was familiar with.

She was intellectual FELiNiTY meets European casual. European effortless, which is really American effort. Never trendy. Intentionality without flash. Having a relationship with the pieces in her closet was sacred to her.

Lots of rich jewel tones and earthy hues. Her palette complemented her light complexion. Vintage designer in abundance. Ribbed knit tops, simple skirts, tailored trousers. Classic, functional, but still sensual. Hands that traced over seams, caressing them like one would a lover’s hair.

She was prouder of the hunt than the pieces themselves. Would show me her Vinted for you page and talk away about why she wanted this or that. She knew her history. A design student, a stylist, a fashion writer.

She would also lecture me on why she didn’t buy most things she wanted. If she couldn’t picture her daughter wearing it decades from now...then what was the point? She didn’t want fads. She wanted eternal. And she thought the only way to find eternal, was to slow down and honor your essence. Match the fabrics and cuts and colors to your iNNER WORLD.

Her jewelry? Minimal but meaningful. Could tell you exactly how old she was when her mothers passed it on to her. How she felt when she thrifted this or that. What she was going through in life when it was gifted to her.

An OLD SOUL GRAViTY. All her choices were for truth—her truth—to shine. Not for spectacle. Her face seemed like it was perpetually in dialogue with a thought she hadn’t yet shared. I wanted her to share.

We were both Catholics, headed in opposite directions. Her a natural born one, trying to shake the shame and guilt that came with being a CATHOLiC GiRL. Me? Jesus came into my life in my early 20s, and I surrendered fully to him only a couple years before. God was still like a new stuffed animal to me. I wanted him all to myself, to love me, to listen to me. She told me what she prayed for, and it was a long list of people other than herself.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. Like I always did. I felt it though. I knew she did too.

There was the DUALiTY I loved. Like me—a listener, shy, romantic. But also confident, ambitious, daring. Couldn’t stop talking once we felt understood.

We started talking on the Fourth of July. This of course meant nothing to her. Spanish by birth but homesick by way of Belgium.

I was American by birth and homesick by way of my life crumbling around me. I built the cathedral of my 20s, and detonated it myself. I felt naked. Free.

As our voice notes got longer and longer, as our tans got darker and darker, as our thoughts intertwined, I found myself falling for the first time since the breakup. It was nice that there was distance. It forced me to slow down. And so the summer deepened.

She admired the ivy that covered the stone walls guiding her walk to work. Told me that we could learn from the tempo of nature.

I loved volcanos and hurricanes. They had much to teach us too.

She adored sea turtles. Elegant, ancient, deliberate. They travel oceans but return home to their birthplace. An existence of ache, of softness encased in strength. Dignified in their slowness, carrying history in their bones. Pilgrims in their own skin—vulnerable but unbothered.

I loved jaguars. Velvet menace. Sleek and shadowed, all silence until eruption. Jungle born, moon fed power. An unsettling beauty—the type that ambushes you, unsettles you, awakens you. An existence of rhythm, of blood, of risk. And hard earned rest.

I thought I could teach her how to leap, how to change the air with your very presence. She thought that for a man obsessed with velocity, she could be my DEVOTiONAL pause.

I studied a selfie she sent—full brows, full lips, with an expression that made her look thoughtful, slightly melancholic. There was already a current inside me flowing for her—I didn’t need to feed it. I needed to learn more about what that observant face was feeling inside. How she earned that radiant beauty. The kind that flows from within.

I couldn’t get enough of her intellect, her interests, her passion. I replayed her voice notes over and over: listening to her discourse on the state of fashion journalism, on the newest brands she had discovered, on the marketing campaigns she thought were revolutionary. An obsession for the overlooked brands, the upstarts, the fearless auteurs that were taking on the BiG HOUSES.

Then she switched over to telling me about her day, but not in the rote play by play sense. She would chart the emotional climate, the texture of the events, the places, the people that orbited her. Her updates read like moodboards. She didn’t just recount her day, she curated it like a DiARiST WiTH TASTE. Her narration had an invigorating architecture—poetic, instinctive, softly surreal. I got drunk on her check-ins.

Then she waxed on about how she was infatuated by the Carolina Herrera dress worn in How To Lose A Guy In 10 Days. Or sent me articles from her collection of old L’Officiel copies and trace today’s celebrity fashion choices to their origin. Like me, she loved to find depth in pop culture.

And of course, the books. That was another thing that felt fated. I had just finished reading Just Kids by Patti Smith. She had too.

This is where I felt most open. On and on, I told her about my favorite books, my own novel I was working on. I invited her into these fictional worlds, the ones that have been my escape since childhood. When my mother would take me to all the bookstores around the city, and I would sit leaning against her, the hours flying as she’d stroke my hair and I’d be far far away.

I invited her in, like a PLAYMATE.

Come. Look at what I find stimulating, what I find enchanting, what I love, what I’m scared of, what I crave. Never directly. Only through the SYMBOLS and MiRRORS of LiTERATURE.

Do you like?

I knew things were really headed somewhere when the resistance began.

She asked me about my breakup. There was a video I had posted. About this song I loved. How I would sing the chorus at the top of my lungs whenever it came on. Cris MJ, the trickster king, the champagne playboy, over a dark synthy reggaeton beat.

TE LO HAGO RICO PA QUE SIEMPRE ME RECUERDE

POR SI MAÑANA ME PIERDE

And my ex would always wonder what it meant. So one day I translated it to her.

I GIVE IT TO YOU GOOD SO YOU CAN ALWAYS REMEMBER ME

IN CASE YOU LOSE ME TOMORROW

Naturally, this upset my ex. I swore to her there was no conscious choice in this, I simply liked his delivery. The content was secondary.

This only made things worse. The SUBCONSCiOUS is where the TRUTH LiVES.

So I told her I would tell her more over a video call. We had been trying to pin down a date, but I was deep in birth month (half of my family is a July baby) celebrating with the kin, and she had a schedule that was all over the place.

Finally though, she made the time. It was the APEX of SUMMER.

9:30pm and the sun was only then setting. I took the call at the viewpoint up the hill from my parent’s new home. Sat with my feet hanging over the edge of the crumbling wall. Looking out at the peninsula across the way, the many sailing boats moored to the dock.

I felt my breathing get sharper as I waited for her to ring me. All around, the village hummed with townspeople meeting friends outside for dinner, clanking Cruzcampo bottles, the smell of fried eggplant and sardines wafting.

I don’t remember much about the first call. It was intoxicating. I do remember her showing me her new slouch suede Fendi boots. And a vintage edition of Crime and Punishment. My favorite.

It was that book that made me put the bullet in the chamber. I told her I needed to see her. She giggled but demurred. Made me jump through some more conversational hoops, and when I passed—she said okay, I’ll believe it when I see you.

I skipped my way down the hill and back to my parent’s place. Rushed to my bedroom because my grin was GiViNG iT ALL AWAY. And the crush was too real now to talk about.

The next day neither one of us wanted to send the first message. Too much to say. Cupid had loaded a big arrow on the bow, and whoever blinked first was going to get it straight to the heart. Oh well.

It was such a relief that she loved her family as much as I did. Her an ELDEST DAUGHTER, me the BABY BOY. I had been in a pattern of dating women with...complex childhoods, and I found myself shrinking so as not to activate their trauma. But the truth was, I wanted to talk about my family all day. And with her, I could. She had just as tight knit of a cocoon. The way she talked about her own mother made me view mine with even larger HEART EYES. The appreciation for their age, how they grew more beautiful with every passing year. Like an oak tree.

Then there was the AMBiTiON. Her, knowing she was destined to run her own fashion magazine, the next generation Vogue. Me, having just cut off the chase to be the next Steve Jobs, realizing I was meant to be the highest me. A †$UPER$TAR WRiTER†. The vocation I dreamt of as a child, before we even thought about careers or jobs. But I had been scared of the electricity of living like an artist, and had abstracted it away to treating my company like a canvas.

We spoke endlessly in AFFiRMiNG language. Pushed one another by editing each other’s writing, learned from one another’s video making.

Now my mood was dictated by her messages. I was insatiable. I wanted her to send pictures of her every trinket. To cut me a piece of every slice of her life. She started a pattern of sending me videos of her walking home from work. GLiDiNG, unhurried, head high, gaze soft.

There had been a pair of houndstooth Bottega flats she impulse bought. Rare for her but the deal was too good to pass up and she could see the infinite outfit permutations that they could unlock. Plus she could picture her daughter slipping them on. When they came she sent me a video of her fingers gently running over the houndstooth. She explained that the shoes felt like the place she was in in her life. I didn’t understand, but I wanted to.

I studied the pictures she would send me of her room like a Rorschach, trying to interpret how she was feeling. Were there fresh tulips in her vase by the window? Why was her DKNY bag sitting on top of the bookcase, instead of the little trunk filled with family photos like it normally was? Was that a new candle in the little nook by her bed? How was she liking that new journal she got, the one that she tucked under the covers and I could spot as a lump?

She loved to talk about herself. I soaked it all up, like a man parched for the GLAMOUR MAGiC that is women’s self love. Her curly hair was an infinite topic. Her lips. She sent pics cropped from the lips down. I traced her figure, drank it in. Especially when she was in that navy skirt with the side slit. The Dolce one that her mom had blessed her with.

That woke me up again. I knew it was time to step towards the dream. See how real it was.

I accompanied my sister to a tattoo appointment on her birthday, near the end of July. I got my first piece done, a small GOTHiC CROSS on the neck. Right where the big vein pulses. As my sister laid down for her collarbone moon and stars, I planned my voyage.

I would take my time. Madrid, Barcelona, Paris. Then Belgium. And Belgium only for a few days before boomeranging back. A dread rippled through me. A fear of getting stuck. Like she did.

I called her out of the blue that night, to let her know. She quickly declined the call. A couple hours later she called me, out late at night on the streets. She had been out at dinner with her friends. And she lived with her aunt, a LiGHT SLEEPER.

I didn’t get the reaction I expected when I told her my plans.

Well, I did. For an instant. Her eyes lit up—I swear I saw her long eyelashes dance. But then a lowering of the volume. She asked me if I was just coming for her. I told her the Belgium leg was for her, but the rest of the trip was for me. My E,P,L. I received an eye roll.

She wanted exact dates. I didn’t have them. I wanted to treat my trip like an improvisation. Let my heart tell me when it was time to leave. She insisted I give her exact dates. My jaw tightened as I rubbed the back of my neck. I told her I would once I knew them. She said she had work and if I didn’t tell her dates, I wouldn’t be able to see her much because she wouldn’t be able to take off last minute.

Okay.

I tossed all night. Hot and wired, haunted by her voice going cold.

The next day she swung back. Apologized for her reaction the night before, said it had been a long day at the end of a long week. But she was overjoyed. I heard it in her voice. And to really make up, she let me further in. Showed me an Art Deco vanity she had bought in Paris for her mother’s birthday. Something she had yet to show anyone. I purred with approval.

48 hours later I was on the train to the capital. The churning in my stomach growing with every stop. Every tree that flew past the window, every village that we skated by, every teary eyed wave from the platform. I was pulsing. Throbbing.

She wasn’t the FiRST after the LAST.

There had been the curvy flight attendant from Porto (much older than me). I met her on a night out. Stunning, flirty, flighty. No intention of settling down. She swore I was gay even as we made out, until well... she swore I was a man who made no sense. I would see her again months later in New York.

Then there was the ethereal model, half Cape Verdean (much younger than me). I met on the beach in Cascais. Bubbly, shy, idealistic. The type of beauty that isolates. Made her ruminate as to why no one had pursued her. We didn’t last because I knew I was in no position to be her first love. Not during my outlaw summer. She called a month later asking for a second chance.

But they offered little iNTELLECTUAL iNTiMACY. Which is the real key to my being. I am man, and my blood is red—but it truly ignites when the neurons are stroked the right way. And I was hot, hot, hot. Not just cause Barcelona was sweltering.

It was my first night in Paris when I started to feel like I was drowning. I felt like I was being pulled to her with a DEVASTATiNG MAGNETiSM. Each mile closer made me buzz. I found myself constantly tapping my foot and startling at every sight of curly hair.

I kept her updated with photos of all my travels. The Sagrada and its crowds, my tapas and wine in Madrid, the Rodin sculptures in Paris. Everywhere I saw a postcard I bought one as a form of survival. Immediately, I tried to let out some of my electricity with some writing to her. It would work. Temporarily.

Vessel vs. voltage. The EXiSTENTiAL BATTLE of my life.

In each postcard I signed my name with more and more. First name, then first and middle, the first, middle and last. Becoming realer as I got closer. All the while making sure I wasn’t handing border guards my real passport.

Finally, I stopped dragging my feet. Told her I would leave Paris in 72. Belgium next. Her next.

Her, her, her.

The day before I was due to leave I sat eating in a corner bistro, scrawling away in my notebook. A pro-Palestine rally had shut down the streets around me, and the thunder of HOLY DiSOBEDiENCE swelled the avenue. I caught the eyes of many of the lion-hearted youth and felt a pull. Maybe my eros was never romantic at all, but a restless force meant to be consecrated to díkē.

I was one step away from filling my arms with my compulsion, my letters. Tattooing the restlessness. I tried to ground myself but it fell short.

I thought maybe the Australian girl I kept running into at the same bar was the answer. She knew all about the girl I was heading to see. Said it caught her by surprise that I had kissed her. Told me this when we were back in her room, under her sheets. But I couldn’t, so I didn’t. My flame was already CHAiNED.

As the bus pulled into town, something came over me. The calm washed over.

I had arrived. With myself.

She was facing away when I first saw her. Sitting below a lion statue, staring out at the river. It was the final weekend of the town’s raucous yearly festival, the streets overrun with drunk tourists from all over Europe. She had picked a side street to meet up at.

Her curly hair was blowing in the wind. Before I called out to her I drank it all in. I felt the danger. She didn’t try to be seen. She was already STYLED for MEMORY, not the MOMENT. I felt the danger.

When our eyes finally met, a heavy silence passed between us. Smiles suppressed but breaking through. I hugged her. Melted into her violet & cedar scent. She was wearing the white and black polka dot skirt I told her I liked, and a backless black top I had never seen before. A white headband she kept adjusting.

She planned for us visit a museum exhibit to break the live ice. She teased me for being nervous, quiet. I was quiet, but I was not nervous. I was possessed. Entranced. Soaking it in. I wanted her to simply be and exist near me so I could enjoy. Writers are witnesses first and foremost. And if we observe closely enough, if God shines down on us—we reach the holy grail, and we are blinded by the impossible: seeing someone as they are when NO ONE is WATCHiNG.

We walked to the museum, her teasing me for how fast I walked. She thought it very New York of me. I was captivated by the town itself. For some reason I felt invisible here. Like I had a cloak on. Untouchable.

My neck was on a swivel, taking in the canals that snaked through, the water reflecting the gabled houses. The ivy she had previewed, climbing medieval walls. Warm stone. Uneven cobblestone. The earthy beer smell mixing in with the damp river air. We crossed a crumbling brick bridge and I took a mental picture of her against the faint golden haze of the sky.

The exhibit was called ARTiFACTS WiTH MEANiNG. I don’t remember the items, only her leaning over each glass box and reminding me how she saw the world. Moods, impressions, atmospheres, sensations. Not like me. Characters, motives, consequences, reversals.

In that moment, I had a feeling one of us was going to feel pain.

We spent the rest of the day losing ourselves to the collective DiONYSiAN energy. Wandering between stages, enduring strained covers, and stumbling in and out of bars, shouting conversations with red-faced strangers.

The first real touch was when I led her through the crowd, reaching back for her to hold my hand. We finally made it to a patio by the river, and drank cherry beers as we stared at each other with smiling eyes.

I rubbed the stickers on the back of her phone—a boutique hotel crest, a pressed flower sealed under clear vinyl, a care label graphic. She reached for my phone and swiped to the camera, to take a selfie of us.

Neither one of us wanted the night to end. It was almost 1AM and we sat on a bench under the cantilevered roof of the new library. The town was entirely Gothic, except for this one modern building. On the river.

We looked out at the water and talked about everything other than what was burning our insides. Our voices lowered. Eyes darting, lip to lip. The party was still going strong, just far enough to be glitter instead of blare.

She asked me how my tattoo was healing. This obliged us to turn toward one another. Her eyes lingered on the ink. My heartbeat stopped as I answered.

She looked up at me and I trailed off.

The kisses came dense, deliberate.

They began slowly, almost CEREMONiALLY, with a velvet warmth. Our breathing forgot its discipline and they deepened. She introduced her tongue and everything followed. The breath softened again, the mouths slowed, and the river went still. We were swimming together, right on that bench.

We pulled away and our eyes were bowed.

Our laughing started and rang out. A group of teenagers riding by on bicycles snickered along with us.

I looked at the sculpture behind her. A circle of people, maybe twenty foot tall, all leaning into to each other, forming a teepee like structure so their faces were obscured. It was the best sculpture I had ever seen.

We took the side streets to my hotel. I had something to give her.

My copy of Giovanni’s Room. I knew she liked Paris, and I knew she liked love—the thorny kind, the self-revealing kind, the kind you surrender to—so I gave it to her.

She waited outside. When I handed it to her, we kissed and kissed and kissed, me pushing her up against the frame of the door. Around us, SHADOWS MiLLED about, hooting and hollering, but we didn’t hear them. She told me to stop, or else she was going to go upstairs with me. I kissed her at the hollow of her neck. She exhaled, softly. I then gave her a kiss on the forehead and said I would take her home.

We took the side streets. What should have been a ten minute walk to her aunt’s house stretched into half an hour, interrupted by our need to stop and return to one another. We kept punctuating with pauses we never explained. A few blocks from her door, she made me say goodnight.

I floated home, like a cartoon cat following the scent of a freshly baked pie.

The next day, I rose late and stumbled to look in the mirror. I had to confirm that there were not two men staring back at me.

One half wanted to get the next train out of town. The other wanted to march over to her house and become one.

I gripped the sides of the sink and closed my eyes.

Why? Why did I feel like this? Why was I like this?

The last time I felt like that was with my ex, on the third date. We kissed that night, and then spent the entire weekend together—and after a couple weeks, almost everyday thereafter.

I loved my passion, but my FULL THROTTLE nature was too much for me at times. I had to learn how to discern. How to sit with the emotions, instead of rushing to consummate them. Like a child I grasped tightly at what I loved, and threw it to the side just as quickly once it hurt me or bored me.

I laid on my bed and did some breathing exercises. I turned myself to God, like a SUNFLOWER. I was not feeling any sort of shame, I was just trying to actively contain my desire. Not to suppress it, but to sit with it, let it know I saw it, I felt it, I loved it, but it didn’t control me. I fell back asleep.

Then I awoke as one.

We met up in a park, where a children’s carnival was being inflated. I stared at the giant alligator bounce house coming to life, as she nuzzled into me.

I kept directing her attention to the alligator, to the little kids that climbed all over it. She placated me, but wanted to continue the energy from the night before. I was not ready to play that again. After a couple of stiff kisses, she asked me what was wrong.

I told her I was so far away from home, from myself. That being here with her, and connecting so fast, only reminded me how adrift I was. It was not that she was making me feel bad, it was that her presence made me feel so good I already dreaded the DiSCONNECTiON. I knew it was all fleeting, and I wanted nothing more than stable ground.

She hugged me and I began to cry.

Then I let loose. Turned the dialogue to monologue.

I talked about the alligator and how badly I wanted to capture it. She asked what I meant by that. I told her to look, to really look at the children. Look at how happy the alligator made them. But how does the alligator feel? And where does he go when his day is done? And where does he sleep? And does he have a family? Or does he just do his job and deflate?

She smiled and wiped away my tears.

I told her it was so much. Everything inside of me, everything I felt and wanted to witness, preserve and honor. Reflect back to the world.

Look around, I said. Look at all the beauty around. Look at how big even the smallest things are. Look at how much it means. Just stop and look and feel and I promise you, you’ll realize how divine it all is. How beautiful we all are. There was an iMMENSiTY around me, and an iMMENSiTY inside of me, and I was collapsing with the ENORMiTY of my duty, my responsibility, my calling.

She had me take deep breaths, and finally, I wiped my own tears and faced her. I thanked her for letting me pour myself out. She said it was her that was grateful that I felt safe enough to split open in her company.

Then with a laugh and sidelong glance 1-2, she told me that I had just confirmed something she had always suspected.

She believed every woman was born with a myth inside. You just had to live long enough to name it, and to block out the noise so you could worship it without dilution or distortion. But men? She thought that we were empty. That was why it was us in history who tried to craft gods, name them, make them look like us and use them to control. And then tear them down when they no longer served us. Because we knew none of it was real—least of all, us.

She asked me why I came. My strength, my peace was now restored, as it always did after a good cry. I looked her in the eye and told her I was there for her. That I been DRiVEN WiLD by her over the last month and I was following my heart. She blushed and tucked her hair behind her ear.

But then I spoke from somewhere else, somewhere I had not ever reached into. A voice I’d heard but ignored.

Like the time I ruined a twelve year friendship. A woman I loved platonically. I was not attracted to her despite her being stormy and pretty. I knew she had a crush on me for some time, but chose to deflect it, to treat her like a younger sister. Then one night she admitted it all to me, when her husband was out of town.

I was deeply lonely at that point in my life. I had all the dreams of my early 20s coming true—the money, the attention, the power. With them, there was a sudden recognition of how hollow it all felt. AGAiNST my own iNTUiTiON, I crossed the line.

I pressed our bodies up against the living room window of my apartment, both of us looking out at Manhattan skyline lit and fractured by a thunderstorm. For an hour, something animal took over—urgent, consoling. In that shared heat, there was relief. Comfort. But after the flash spent itself, the friendship burned down. Forever.

So I sat in the park and told her that I was overwhelmingly attracted to her. But I was okay with doing nothing more. That our budding friendship meant more to me than any physical release. I just wanted her company and our conversations, and I would be content.

She said she doubted this—after all why would I travel all this way.

This was the first time her words cut me.

I didn’t know how to explain to her that I had been told that being with me was like dancing with a LiVE WiRE. That as hard as I tried to love openly and gently, I seemed to burn many of the women I was with. They would find it difficult to remain friends with me after it was all said and done. That the afterglow of my ballads was eternal. That my unions unspooled the way all great romances do—a lifelong he said, she said, but no more dialogue.

I wanted to avoid that fate. To save my electricity for a time when I was more stable, with someone who was fully aligned. Some who I could give this big heart to without any fear of them not being able to handle my TURBULENCE. I knew it was I who had to become comfortable with my intensity. To not flinch at my gravity, to stand securely with my hunger. To own my appetite without fearing a loss of my creative vitality.

I wanted, but in wanting, I feared hurting. And I knew I was capable of great hurt. I could tell this girl and I could be something big. A whole novel. But where we were in life, we were at most a short, sad story. Instead, I wanted to guarantee a HAPPY ENDiNG.

I lassoed these thoughts inside and simply told her that I meant what I said. I was here. Present. I just wanted us together, in the moment. Loose. Free. She raised an eyebrow but stroked my beard and said okay. I said merci, echoing back to her her favorite word.

We left the park to brunch. I looked back one last time at the alligator with his open mouth.

At brunch, she asked if she could see my notebook, the one I had been scrawling into alongside her. I hesitated, but then handed it over. My black pen had run out of ink, and she dug around in her bag for a blue replacement. Flipping to the back, she jotted something down, then passed it back to me for a reply. A RiFF.

There is no wind. There is no sun, yet. People keep walking in the chill. You are here but you are almost gone. I think of you as a dream. One I want to keep still but know I cannot.

In the stillness will come the light, when the dream evaporates. In the dark, in the rain, we are our own heat. We can sit in the glow of what we have created, through our honesty. It is ours and no one can take that from us. The rest can witness, but I care only that you see me and I see you.

I was dying for a nap.

We went back to my place. In the hallway she looked at me. Asked again if I was serious about not wanting to do anything more. I nodded silently.

She kissed me, tried to swirl my emotions. She asked me if that didn’t change my mind. I said I wanted it all, but only if that was what she truly wanted—and if she knew there was nothing more after this weekend. She looked up at me, and for the first time I saw a crack in HER ARMOR.

I opened the door.

Inside, she said okay. That we would do nothing more. I kissed her and said that was fine by me. She pouted and pushed my lips away with her finger.

I smiled and told her I was going to nap. That she was free to go. We could meet later. She said she’d wait on the couch, if I wouldn’t be too long. I told her it wouldn’t—just a quick shower, a half hour of sleep and I’d be fresh and ready for the evening. At my mention of a shower, she shook her head.

I know exactly what you’re doing.

I wasn’t doing anything. Truly. My mind was entirely on quelling the exhaustion that was enveloping me. My spirit had been through a ROLLERCOASTER the last week. My vitality was fighting against me and I was winning but at a great cost.

I shrugged, grabbed a pair of shorts, then slipped into the shower. I let the warm water pour over me and closed my eyes. The water loosened my back, opened my lungs. I pictured her by the balcony, waiting.

I stepped out and toweled off, still shirtless. She shook her head again.

Uh-uh. You can’t keep doing this.

Doing what?

You know.

My patience thinned. I laughed and climbed into bed.

Yea I do know. I’m going to sleep.

The low bass from outside carried me under.

When I woke, she was beside me, looking up at the ceiling. Still fully clothed, a fitted green sleeveless top, a long flowy white skirt. She asked if it was all right if she lay next to me while I slept. I looked at her chunky gold necklace, the sun smiling at me. I said yes, so long as she let me sleep.

She turned to me and nodded, lied straight to my face. I knew it then. I was going to lose.

In my haze I remember her hand on my chest. My face buried in her hair, and the smell of coconut. Her mouth at my neck. Her leg wrapping around my waist.

Are we really not going to do anything?

There was no more talking after that. I made sure of it.

I turned into her, then let my weight settle. Deliberate, controlled, delicate. Enough so that she was pinned, but could still breathe.

There were no more voices inside me anymore. Only impulse. Only breath, only nerves. Only the pursuit of our pleasure. It was time to show her the UNSAiD.

The rest of the evening was a mutual devouring. True compatibility reveals itself not in conversation, but in rhythm. Do your two bodies have the same grammar? Sometimes the best of emotional and intellectual connections can fall short, like a puzzle piece that’s got the tiniest little misshape.

This was not one of those times.

I owned her and she owned me.

There was no wrong move. She could not contain her sounds, and I could not contain my own. I could not stop. I did not stop. She was drunk off my iNSATiABiLiTY for her.

I told her what to do. I told her how much I liked it when she did what I told her what to do. She told me how much she liked me telling her what to do. She told how much she liked me liking her doing what she was told.

I told her how much I liked her face. Her hair. Her scent. Her skin. Her body. Her tone. Her everything. I fawned and fawned as I showed her over and over what I had been trying to restrain.

When time loosened and returned again, she asked how I was still there. I told her my limits were psychological, not physical. She did not believe me. That was a mistake.

I took breaks to to feel her squirm and arch and run her fingers through my hair.

There are three moments I remember most vividly.

In the first, she’s on all fours. I behind. Her voice breaking, reaching back for my hand. I ask her what’s wrong, but do not stop. I hold her hand as she turns back and tells me más. Her wish, my command.

In the second, her prone beneath me, my mouth at her ear. This is my favorite position and always has been. It is control, it is domination. But it is also protection, it is caring. I am taking my time, slow and not all the way, despite her plea for more. She asks me in her clearest voice yet, as if breaking the spell, why I resisted earlier. I move her hair to the side, so I can nuzzle into her neck, lick her ear. I tell her I wanted it to be right. That this was special to me. That I knew my value, and wanted her to work for it. So I knew she understood. She craned to kiss me, deliberately. I then picked up the pace and she let out a hiss—that she could see why. That I was addicting.

In the third, we are quiet. Our desire spent. Struggling to keep our eyes open, we lay in a puddle of sweat. She is curled into me and I am for the first time since I started talking to her, truly at peace. We kiss and it is better than every other time.

Then, as always in the wake of every aftermath, I WORSHiP. I showered her entire body with quick, grateful kisses. Each one a thank you. Offerings.

We showered together, laughing all the while. Later, outside in the dark cacophony, we shared a slice of pizza and some soda, then headed back to the room to watch some TV. She showed me all her favorite American media, the cultural fragments that shaped her growing up. I am surprised by how similar are childhoods are despite the ocean between us.

At midnight, she pouted again and told me she had to leave. I called her a car, kissed her as she stepped into it. I closed the door and waved, then headed upstairs to pass out.

I don’t remember much else of the town the next two days. We hardly saw the city. A few brief trips for food, for water, a little wandering for fresh air. Somewhere outside, around us, the city kept celebrating itself—music, movement, lights—but it never reached us. We spent the majority of the time consuming ourselves, like a snake eating its own tail. She always left late, but didn’t spend the night.

I felt ViCTORiOUS. She was a woman who embodied sophistication through restraint. But I flipped her intentional consumption, her careful rationing. I overturned her austerity.

We grew closer and closer. The more the desire was spent, the more walls came down. The past revealed. Hopes of the future as well.

She kept telling me how much she liked my duality. That I was assertive, but was also more tender than any man she had ever met. So sweet and so bad. So forceful and so soft.

I had a flashback to my mother telling me I was the gentlest child ever—but also the cruelest. It made my chest tense.

On my final full day there we resolved to do a little bit of exploring. The giant library where our fingers fluttered across spines and our book explanations uncovered more of our inner worlds.

Her favorite burger spot. Here we discovered a deeper POLARiTY.

Across the street we spotted a homeless man, agitated as he set up an art installation. He had on faded green headphones. Scratched up. Navy sunglasses, an orange glove on one hand, and short sleeve shirt with flames on it. He was barefoot, wearing flare jeans covered with paint. He leaned his canvases against a wall, and placed a large Belgian flag umbrella over them. He was tall and tan with jerky movements. His art was incredibly disturbing. I was mesmerized. She was deeply unsettled and asked us to change seats so we did not face him. I did not want to do this, but she pleaded until I finally gave in. After our meal I was dying to talk to the man, to learn more about him and his art. She had terror in her eyes and pulled me away. I sulked, lamenting that I was not able to learn from this DAMAGED SOUL.

In the thrift stores she played stylist with me. Told me what flatters me, what colors would look good, what style inspo to draw from. I liked mid 2000s Eurotrash/footballer, like Ronaldo, Balotelli, Beckham. Gaudy, boyish, cocky. She told me my intuition is good, but I would also do well to throw in some balance—a little old money, some linens.

She dressed me like a doll. Taught me how to express, truly express through fashion. She told me superstars are simple and distinctive in their style. REPETiTiON breeds RECOGNiTiON.

So I should stick to only ever wearing jeans. They are rugged, they are humble, but have been reworked over time into ELEGANCE and REBELLiON. That they are UNAPOLOGETiCALLY AMERiCAN, the way I am. They accept every version of you—holding form but giving way. The constraint would be good for me. Different washes, cuts but always jeans. Rituals ground people like me.

You’re a man of the people. You can wear Dior, but not without denim. Your magic is your contrast.

On the second floor of the last shop, I took off my shirt in the aisles to try on a jersey. There was no one around but she was mortified. I asked why? She said it was classless. I shrugged and looked in the mirror. I took it off to add to my bag. I turned around and guided her to the corner by the supply closet. I kissed her neck. She resisted but a hum escaped. I stopped as suddenly as I started and told her to compose herself, with a smile on my face. She slapped my arm and we went downstairs to pay.

Before we went back to our HiDEAWAY, I asked to go sit by the river. I wanted to delay the inevitable. We sat on a set of steps and watched the boats go by. The party was now over and the streets were filled with tired face and empty wallets. A dopamine shortage. I looked at the still water and began to cry. She rubbed my back. Waited for me to let out the first wave, and when I began sniffling, asked me what was wrong.

I told her that I was tired of running. That I wanted to just STAY STiLL. I felt so at home with her here, but I had to leave. I wished I could stay longer, I really wished I could. With her, with this version of me. That my entire life had felt like a relentless performance of greatness. That all the GOLDEN BOY love had come with golden boy expectations. And that each time I won, each time I reached the dream, it only piled on what people thought of me. I became dependent on all the forward motion. But I was done. I wanted to just be.

She told me it was only I who could slow myself down. That everyone else’s perception of me was their own problem. I was enough. I didn’t need to achieve anything to be adored. I explained that the paradox felt like I was so adored that it felt like I had no choice but to achieve. She shook her head and smiled. From the way I described the people in my life, she said it sounded like none of the love was conditional. People could tell I was destined for something—so they wanted to encourage my potential, but it didn’t mean I had to rush and force. I just had to unfold, to become, to respect my own internal rhythm. I hugged her and cried once more.

When we made it back to the hotel, I simply wanted to lay there with her. She understood me so well. At least enough to tell me what I needed to hear in the moment. We laid there and she told me how intoxicating my sense of ABUNDANCE was. That I moved with inevitability, that there was no doubt to my actions. An overflowing of self love and drive. Which is why it confused her that I was drowning in a state that felt so innate to me. I didn’t have it in me to expand, so I simply kissed her forehead. And sat in the sting of her reflecting back the very ANXiETY I had just professed to be plagued with.

She reached for me, with intent. I swallowed and told her I wanted to rest. That I wanted to stay exactly where we were. She smiled, certain I was playing a game. I gave her a thin smile back and told her really, I just wanted to relax with her. Watch a movie or something. She huffed and said okay. We put on some music videos but I could feel her vibrating.

I tried to reroute by addressing the energy abstractly. We were watching an old award show performance by a famous singer and I explained the reverence I have for women dancing. That there was something so inherently divine about a woman dancing that a man could never embody. It wasn’t just sexy, it was otherworldly. It was hypnotic. Like a glimpse into the ANCiENT, the pre language. She shuddered and turned, said that she could feel the heat emanating from me. She kissed me and I reciprocated, hoping we could keep it there. She kept telling me how much she wanted it, as she stroked it. She told me I had the prettiest words, but something even lovelier hidden beneath them. She liked the way I talked, but she liked the way I didn’t even more.

I don’t know why I did, but I gave in. It was still good—but it wasn’t where my heart was anymore.

That night she finally slept over. Before we went to bed, she asked me if I would consider doing long distance. I told her I had done that before and it was excruciating, even being in the same TiMEZONE. But I promised her that I wanted to be her friend, and leave the door open for us in the future, if our paths ever naturally crossed again. She turned away in the darkness and I followed suit, hugging her tight.

I knew I was not meant to attach my heart there. Simply to rest it and commune with a kindred soul.

I woke with a startle. She was shaking me. I turned and saw her big hair, her hysterical eyes. She was on the verge of tears.

You’re a demon.

What? My voice was hoarse.

I just had a dream. Here. In this room. And you turned into a demon. It was so real.

I thought she was joking. I chuckled then realized she was serious. She begged me to turn on the light. I reached across and did so. She reached out to touch my face. She said it had melted into something black, mouthless. And that my arms had been covered in BLOODSUCKiNG wounds.

I consoled her. She insisted her dream was real. That I had some dark, dark energy inhabiting me. I was at a loss for words. I had never been accused of this before.

She asked me if someone had sucked my blood before. Metaphorically. I said I supposed, that my last relationship was a bit like that. Then she calmed a bit. She explained that maybe the demon was not me, but was the dark energy attached to me. That I ought to cleanse myself.

I felt horrible that she saw me in this way. Her eyes were still panicked but her voice was at least steadier. We drifted back off to sleep. My brain treated the sleeping state as a laboratory, making myths to help me shake a darkness that was not mine. Or that was, and I did not wish to claim.

When we woke up, I still had a few hours before my train. I didn’t remember the night, not until I turned to kiss her and she shuddered. She apologized and told me she hadn’t slept at all. I stiffened at this. The overwhelming sweetness of the weekend giving way to a BiTTER AFTERTASTE.

We walked silently to our final meal, a waffle spot in a busy plaza. She looked around. After some averted gazes and throat clearing, she told me she was sorry.

She didn’t mean to scare me. Then she flipped, catching me further off guard. She said I had actually scared her all weekend. That it was part of why she found me irresistible. Her hair raising in my presence was alluring. My darkness an aphrodisiac.

My head was SPiNNiNG.

I sipped my lemon water and tried to reel it all in. She reached across and stroked my hand. We ate in silence. The food seemed to regulate us a bit.

We admired an Asian girl with bleached eyebrows, rocking a green fishnet beanie. She remarked that she loved people who dressed for themselves, especially in environments that suffocated you with their conformity.

We swatted a bee, took pictures of a ladybug.

She told me about her study abroad in Paris. Three girls in a flat that had a closet in the middle connecting to all their rooms. Sharing clothes all semester long. I told her as a child I obsessed about how all my stuffed animals needed to get equal love and attention. How I once cried to my mother that I had been neglecting a small monkey whose nose fell off and scared me. She told me how she once wrote her mom a long confession letter about all the little lies she told as a teenager.

On a napkin she drew me a wheel, broken up into eight slices. My name above it, she labeled the slices as:

Love

Passion

Artistry

Ego

Arrogance

Duality

Indifference

Emptiness

She told me I felt very empty. I said maybe I was. Maybe I was so full some people saw it as empty. Black is closer to white than all the other colors are. I talked about my book. At that point I was pitching it clumsily as:

It’s about sex and love and how young men separate the two because they’re scared or angry or both but all it takes is one good connection to make you feel whole.

She nodded along, then asked me if I felt lost. I dodged her question. Told her a lot of the photos I took on the way here were filled with birds in flight. But I craved a butterfly. Resting on a branch or a flower. Because this was the animal my grandmother told us she would come back as when she passed. She accepted my answer.

She took my notebook, this time without asking. Reached for the blue pen then put it to her lips as she thought. I watched her. Took a photo with my camera. Then she handed it to me. Told me she had WRiTER’S BLOCK. So I kicked it off and handed it back.

Orpheus and Medusa in the Gothic shadows of the Dionysian festival of a far, far away land. The rain, the cherry beer, the Formula racers. The speed is there. But so is the rest. Life is a big spiral upwards, but with some special people, it can feel like a straight line.

And in that line, tension, expectation, affection, embrace unfolds. Is it possible to keep walking this line together, blindly? Or will I have to accept it is a dream?

Just so long as you never think of it as a nightmare.

We signed it THE BEE and THE LADYBUG.

The final kiss as she saw me off was feverish. Two people moving in different directions, but only one of them happy. I looked out the window at the platform. Spouses, grandparents, toddlers, all blowing kisses at the newly departed.

She stood there with her arms crossed, her head titled. She remained that way as the train moved. It was restraint as posture, as principle. Her eyes never wavered from mine. She was making her emotions obey a line and a cut. Even her farewell had quiet taste.

In Paris, I threw away the blue pen she had given me. Too thick. I replaced it with a black fine point Japanese one.

In Bordeaux I bought her a postcard, planned on sending it when I got back.

Four days later, in San Sebastian she asked me if we could call. We had been texting, but with the tension of two people feeling like frayed strands. I called her after my surf lesson. Her tone was rehearsed, I could feel it.

She told me what we had done was a mistake. That she admired much in me, and enjoyed our time together, but I had no right to claim her. I began to speak up, as I had done no claiming. Quite the opposite.

She said my DESiRE was dangerous. That it was going to ruin me if I didn’t keep it in check. That she needed to protect herself and her path in life. I bit my tongue. I could tell this was a script for her to hear out loud, not for me. I thought about how we agreed that if I was a color, I was blue. But where I thought I was a baby blue, she saw me as midnight.

She ended her SOLiLOQUY. Asked me if I had any thoughts. I said I appreciated her honesty, and wished her the best. I was ready to hang up.

A Danish girl—someone I’d shared a drink with the night before—joined me on the patio. Her headphones were in, but I knew she was listening. I did not care.

Her tone shifted. She asked me if that was it. She asked me if I felt awakened at all.

I said sure, she felt like a nourishing connection. An important mirror. And I was going to take to heart her encouragement to slow down, to sit with myself, to cleanse. To work on the masculine CONTAiNER for all my range and relentlessness. That hopefully I had also inspired her—to chase her dreams with more conviction and momentum.

She then sounded very far away. She said what we did was a dream and I should remember it as such.

She said she shouldn’t have.

Shouldn’t have what? What? Shouldn’t have what?

Cheated.

She let out a long breath. It all clicked. Why the shadow flared with her eros. How I was responsible for her apparition.

Medusa forces truth. She is a DiViNE iNTERRUPTOR. Her erotic power is her curse.

She was now angry. She said I had no duality. That I was simply a SHAPESHiFTER. Carrying lots of heaviness.

I hung up. Rubbed my eyes until they were filled with stars.

That night I went out with the Danish girl, to a bar nearby. She probed about the conversation she overheard (just the tiniest snippet she claimed). I said it had been an EPHEMERAL weekend.

I was in the early innings of shedding my skin. Healing but struggling to fully ungrasp. I was still stumbling into the grooves of my old patterns.

She told me she had never met a man who spoke the way I did, as she leaned her knee against mine. I smiled. Thanked her. Told her I had to be up early. She said she would leave me with me. I told her it was fine—she should stay. Her friend was arriving any minute anyways.

I walked home alone. Disappeared into the crowd.

On the street, I put my headphones in. I pressed play on the song that my ex hated, the one drowning in REVERB.

It no longer sounded like a theme song.

Tengo algo rico pa’ que siempre me recuerde’
Por si mañana me pierde’
Tu cuerpo me provoca y no sé qué hacerle (eh)
Hace’ que yo vuelva a pecar
Yo conozco tu malda’, no te haga’ la inocente
Ella tiene su cuenta priva’ (ey)
Me gusta montarla encima (yeah, yeah)

Sabe que está pa’ mí aunque el tiempo pase (ah)
¿Cómo se mueve así? Me dice que le dé suave (ah)
Ella busca chingadera y le cumplo lo que quiera
Cuida’o, que nadie nos vea (ey) y los pantys me modela
Yo conozco, baby, tu maldad (tra)
También sé a lo que tú va’
Tú ere’ una diabla disfraza’
En mi cama te pongo a brincar, muah
Te pongo mis cadena’ y te rompo (jeje)
Ella cumple en agosto y me dice que estoy loco (yeah-yeah)
A eso’ gile’ yo los tosto (prr)
El party te lo exploto y en la Lambo yo te monto, ah
Tú no te da’ ni cuenta
Que yo te saco la vuelta, mami, yo soy tu Beretta (jaja)
Tu nalga el bicho me aprieta (ey)
Ven, tengamo’ una fiesta pa’ que quede’ contenta

Yo conozco, baby, tu vuelta
También sé a dónde tú va’
Tú ere’ una diabla difraza’
Te vo’a poner a brincar

Tengo algo rico pa’ que siempre me recuerde’
Por si mañana me pierde’
Tu cuerpo me provoca y no sé qué hacerle (eh)
Hace’ que yo vuelva a pecar
Yo conozco tu malda’, no te haga’ la inocente
Ella tiene su cuenta priva’
Me gusta montarla encima

En la Lamborghini prendiendo un Phillie
To’ vesti’o Amiri y la gorra es Louis V
Es rica esa mini, mami, ponte freaky
Yo te vo’a quitar esos biki
Ya sabe’ que es mío ese totito
Cuando quiera’, mami, te la aplico
A nadie en la calle yo el achico
Ando a lo maldito, siempre calla’ito
Véngase conmigo y nos vamo’ bien lejito’
Pida’ lo que quiera’, que lo vamo’ a gastar
El mundo entero explorar
En la Louis Vuitton nos ponemo’ a chingar (jeje)
Pa’ que no se te olvide má’

Ah, ah
Pa’ que no se te olvide má’
Ah-ah
Trr (tra)

Tengo algo rico pa’ que siempre me recuerde’
Por si mañana me pierde’
Tu cuerpo me provoca y no sé qué hacerle
Hace’ que yo vuelva a pecar
Yo conozco tu malda’, no te haga’ la inocente (ah)
Ella tiene su cuenta priva’ (ah)
Me gusta montarla encima (yeah, yeah)

EPiLOGUE

Burn and be burned. Cleanse and be cleansed. Accuse and be accused. The story is over. The ghosts are gone. You can love again. Or perhaps for the first time. Nothing to prove anymore. Everything to express. In your own divine rhythm.

Now you can own one of your deepest desires with no fear.

I search for a partner worthy of legend. One who feeds the fire of my making. The mother of all future myths. I am ready for her, I am worthy of her, I will care for her eternally. I am her(s).

Soundtrack provided to you by Stef Davidse

The actor prepares

He wants what he wants

But he can barely pronounce it

Shots of tequila to keep

The imagination from running dry

‍

Let’s play pretend

As a pretty pair of stars

With a pretty pair of cars

And whatever else is ours

‍

The Good Life feels like

July Fourth, Live from New York

Two Cowboys, Twin Dimes

Smack That 3 (Three) Times

‍

Unbroken lines

Right to the heart

And back to the instruments

Dueños de nuestros fantasias

‍

The closer we get

We remember when it wasn’t always like this

I just want you to know

You’re my favorite

‍

Hands On Hands On

Hands Up Hands Up

Whatever life is

We’ll dance on it together

‍

Just don’t let me slow down

Let’s take what we want

And blow smoke at the rest

Tombstone reads WE DiD iT OUR WAY

NOTE FROM THE WRiTER

This is written about my most recent love—a poet with a heart of gold. It is edited by her as well. I wrote it in a single trancelike session on the plane.

I sat in the middle seat. An elderly woman tattooed and tan sat next to me. The window seat remained empty as everyone filed on, eyelids heavy.

I tore at the plastic with my teeth, revealing the red underneath. Blood red. I spit the plastic into my hands and stuffed it into the pocket in front of me. I rummaged through the back pocket of my old notebook. Past the polaroids and film strips and movie tickets and receipts. I found the little shell and placed it in the pocket of the new notebook.

Clicked my pen and opened to the cover.

IN CASE OF LOSS PLEASE RETURN TO?

I had no home. I had a home, a good one, but it was with my ex. I left my ex in our home. Or my home was with my ex. My old home. I had let my ex have that home, what was left of it.

I booked a ticket to Europe where my parents had retired, and even with them, I didn’t find the same home I was expecting. So I booked another flight, this time to somewhere I was sure I had no expectation of feeling at home.

IN CASE OF LOSS PLEASE RETURN TO?

LEVi LOPEZ

I shrugged. What was meant for me would find its way to me. This notebook was never to leave my side, so how would I lose it? You only lose that which you do not keep by your side. And there is only so much you can keep by your side.

“I think that’s everyone.”

I turned to the woman next to me.

“The door is closed. I don’t think that,” she motioned to the window seat, “is booked.”

I opened my mouth to explain, but she seemed eager to have a seat in between us. So I nodded and shuffled over.

I kept the notebook open the whole plane ride, all 45 minutes of it.

All I wrote, right before we landed:

I miss pouring you wine. I miss you handing me the grocery list. I miss you...?

The question mark was traced over and over and over.

Delay after delay meant we landed just after sunrise. The immigration line snaked on and on. I leaned on every wall I could. The passport stamp then the taxi. I dozed off in the taxi. The blue taxi with the yellow stripe and the backseat perfect for sleeping. I only remember the palm trees out the window.

I climbed the long staircase to the medina, the walled ancient part of the city. In the grass by the entrance lay a drunken man snoring away. To the left was a pair of young men in construction vests, drinking coffee and eating pastries. My stomach grumbled.

The suitcase wheels clattered on the cobblestone. I kept rearranging my backpack straps, but there was no longer any comfortable position for them. My phone had no signal and the photo of the map I had didn’t account for all the tiny side streets. Everyone looked like they knew where they were going and it pissed me off. Even the people loitering looked like enemies after half an hour of wandering.

“Hey. Hey movie star.”

I had already had a few men come up to me calling me brother, or friend, or any other charming greeting, clearly trying to sell me something. After the first time replying led to an exhausting conversation, I learned to ignore them.

“Hey. Hey big shot.”

This voice sounded young and I didn’t even see it. I stopped and looked around. He was just beyond the corner, head to toe in fake Gucci. Messy curly hair and dirty hands, his white shoes were covered in dirt as well. But his smile, boy his smile was golden. He had a cardboard box with assorted candy in it. His stance was leaning away from me, as if I had caught him on the go to make an important delivery.

“5 dirham for a chocolate. Or you, because you’re Hollywood man, I charge you only 3.”

He held out a chocolate bar. I blinked.

“Oh, not a fan of chocolate, that’s ok. I have here gummy bears for same price, and if you are on a budget, a mint for 1 dirham.”

He flashed them both to me with a smile.

“No thank you. Maybe another time.”

“Okay well how about a donation? As you say, to a good cause.”

“What’s the cause?

“To the children of Tangier. Whatever you give me I will ensure it is spent wisely.”

He had one hand on his hip and the other around his box.

“How old are you?”

He stood up straight and lifted his chin.

“I am 10. I know I look a bit young, but my mother says I will catch up soon.”

“You’re a bright kid.”

“Thank you. Everyone calls me The Young Man.” He extended his little hand out.

“Levi.”

“Where are you looking for?”

I didn’t think The Young Man could spell trouble so I answered honestly.

“Rue Bouchachem, Apartment 3.”

“Ah, you’re in luck. I was headed that way anyways. Normally I’d charge for an escort but this time I’ll do it for free.”

I had nothing to lose and the delirium was catching up to me, so I fell in step with him.

“You’re lucky I found you. Someone else would have led you the wrong way or charged you. In a plot.”

“A plot?”

“Yes, a plot...a plan to get money from you.”

“A scam.”

“Yes yes, a scam!”

The medina was a narrow labyrinth , with clotheslines crossing everywhere overhead. The acoustics were disorienting—voices echoed around corners and it felt like everyone was closing in or far away, but never where they actually were. The Young Man would greet people often, almost everyone we passed. Two women talking in a doorway, an old man smoking out of the window, a group of young men headed to school. They all smiled and greeted him warmly, and he would salute them back, say a few words in Arabic and make them all laugh.

“To understand Tangier, you need only know about the Societists and the Generalists.” He ushered me through a key shaped passage as he spoke.

“Sociestists? Do you mean Socialists?”

“No. You Americans think you know everything. Listen to a local. The Societists. And the Generalists. See Tangier used to be a free place, one of the freest in the world. That’s because it had no real government. It was run by five countries at once which means it was run by no one. Long before me and you were born. Your people and from everywhere used to come here to do whatever they pleased. But then, there was clearness. One government, the Moroccan government. And they wanted to close the freeness. Control the freeness.”

“So which one is the government? The Generalists?”

“No. Everyone is against the government. The government is for itself. The two groups here disagree on what to do. The Societists think we should do what is best for society. All for one, one for all. The Generalists think we should do what is best for the general public. To, ehm, go with the flow.”

I cocked my head. The difference seemed...minute.

“I’m not understanding. What is an example of something they disagree on?”

“Oh, everything. They’re at each other’s necks all the time. It’s the way the government wants it. The Societists believe the Generalists don’t care about society, and the Generalists believe the Societists don’t care about the general public.”

“But those are basically the same thing?”

“Yes. Exactly. You come from America no? Do your politics make sense?”

I hummed in agreement.

“You are from Los Angeles?”

“No, New York.”

“Ah New York. New Yooooooork.” He broke out a deep (for him) baritone inflection for the long ‘York’.

“So fly back to LA? For your movies?”

“What? What makes you think I’m an actor?”

He stopped and turned to me, looked me up and down and slowly furrowed his brow. I restrained my laughter. He was so serious in everything he did. Even his humor was so present, full of intention.

“You walk like one. And look like one. And talk like one. I see tourists everyday, but movie stars, you are only the second one I’ve seen.”

“Who was the first?”

He waved his hand and continued walking.

“Well, I’m sorry to disappoint but I’m no superhero.”

“Hah. Who said anything about superhero? That I knew. You are no superhero. You are not big. YThat is why you are a star. A normal hero. Someone that is like us, so we can see ourselves and cheer. You struggle and you win. You don’t have a straight line and still you win. You win big.”

“Well thank you, I’ll take that as a compliment.”

“Sure. That one is free. Next compliment 10 dirham.”

We walked along in silence through a courtyard.

“New York. New York. I will call you New York. What a city right? I can only dream of going.”

“Why dream? I’m sure you can go.”

“Eh. I don’t think my father wants me to leave here. He wants me to work for him.”

“Oh yeah, what does your father do?”

He waved this question off as well, “not important, all I know is I never get to see him.”

We observed an argument in the courtyard. A man was refilling a plastic container of water from his own bottle. The man next to him was shouting at him and motioning to the running fountain beside him. The cats that were waiting for the water waited patiently, licking themselves as they laid next to the debate.

“See. Classic Societist that man.” The Young Man flicked his head at the man with the water bottle and beckoned me to continue.

We passed by a table of men playing a colorful board game.

The Young Man read my mind, “Parcheesi, fun game.”

He took a look back and leaned in to me cupping his hand around his mouth, “that game isn’t going to end well, it’s half Generalists, half Societists.”

“Ah here we are. Rue Bouchachem, number 3.”

I gave The Young Man a high five. “I wish I had cash to give you, but I still have to go exchange money.”

“Please, it is an insult. We are friends now.”

I heard a deafening garbled voice ringing through the medina.

“What is that?”

The Young Man’s eyes widened.

“I must go. It is the call to prayer. My mother will be upset if I am late.”

He saluted me, “I will come see you later. Get some rest.”

I shook my head and smiled, I couldn’t believe this character. The rest was a haze, as I only remember taking my clothes off and crawling under the sheets.

I awoke twice. Once in my dream.

I was dreaming that I was with my ex girlfriend, stroking her hair as she sat in front of me, nude. It smelled so good as it always did. I remember I felt unsettled that she would not turn around, even though her shoulders were bouncing up and down and I could hear her stifling sobs. She asked me to make love to her and it made me uncomfortable but I tried. She still did not turn around but at least she stopped crying. I didn’t enjoy it. I awoke in our old apartment and turned to tell her my dream. There was no one home.

I awoke again and had the sun streaming in full force on my face. It was green and yellow and blue as it came through the stained glass window.

I splashed water on my face, changed my clothes, ran my fingers through my hair. I grabbed my book and notebook and headed out the door. I didn’t know where, but I figured I would find the town square and make do from there.

Even in the narrow streets of the Medina, delivery drivers on electric bikes hauling trailers would zip by, forcing you to press yourself against the side of the building. I made it out to a wider street and was greeted by a gorgeous mint green Mercedes 2400. An older man, blue dress shirt, white hair slicked back and aviators on smiled to no one in particular as he drove past.

I walked towards the water and came out to a huge boulevard. There were seagulls a plenty. On the corner was a man hawking birds. He would pick up the birdcage and wave it in someone’s face. The bird would flutter around and make a fuss. The man was not selling any birds.

I walked towards the little public beach. The crosswalk had no lights, despite the cars roaring through the boulevard. I followed behind a surefooted elderly lady who didn’t even turn her head, simply walked straight.

The beach was full of men, a few shirtless. The only women that were there were in hijabs and were watching over their children. I could smell the aloe vera sunscreen from the family beside me, that was lathering it onto their children who were squirming and ready to run into the sand. I sat down on a bench and tried to read my book.

My book made no sense. Literally. The characters I had remembered being in the book were no longer there. I thumbed backwards and found mention of them...but then it was as if the author had forgotten they existed. The narrative was disjointed. I looked back at the cover. A classic? I would power through.

As I tried to read, the sweat slowly forming on my forehead, I caught semblances of conversations. There were tourists walking by speaking languages that also felt distant. There were snippets of familiarity—I was almost sure that it was Spanish, or French, or something recognizable... and then it would devolve into some unintelligible.

Words were failing me at this point. I tried to stare out at the ocean instead. Mmmmm. Good to know, that was still working.

The waves, the waves, the waves. The waves. The waves. The waves. Waves. Waves. Waves. Water. Water. Water. Words. Words.

Without thinking, I pulled out my notebook and clicked my pen.

‌Why are the other things that make people happy not enough for me? They make me happy too, but they are NOT enough.

It wasn’t perfect, but it was electric, it was alive.

It’s not just that I love her…I love that I chose to open myself to loving her. Loving someone felt so far away before her.

The relationship gave me many answers but I’m still calculating if it outweighed how many questions it opened.

I am not sad we broke up, I am sad it didn’t work.

The last night in the McDonalds, drunk and giggling. Why couldn’t it all be like that?

I wiped the tears that had streamed down my cheek and sniffled.

“Is it okay if I sit here?”

I looked up and saw The Military Man. He was wearing a faded uniform, and had on a little hat with sunglasses. He was tan, very tan and wrinkled.

“Go ahead.”

The Military Man was from the mountains. He did me a favor and did not say a word about my crying.

He explained he was a Military Man, from the mountains. He had three homes, all in Morocco. A big family he came from, and a big family he had of his own. He spoke at length about his family, his love for them. His friends, his love for them. He told me how little he cared for money, only that it could help him help his family, help his friends. I commiserated with him about this. He shook my hand and told me he could tell I was a good person, not like other Americans. I was enjoying my conversation, the Military Man explained how Moroccans from the mountains were nicer than those from the cities. He said this as he shooed away a beggar that threatened to interrupt our conversation. He took off his sunglasses to polish them and I saw how receded his eyes were, almost nothing but slits. He invited me to his house in the mountains, if not now, next time I come.

He asked for my number and put it in his phone. He told me about how delicious the fish was in the mountains, even though it was far from the sea. Then he asked me if we were friends. I said sure. Then he asked me for money. I said no. He said why? I said because we just met.

“And why would you need money?”

He said he was staying with his sister but she had left and her husband had kicked him out and he did not have time to grab his things. Once more he asked why I would not give him a little money. I said no I’m sorry. He said just a little money, the type I wouldn’t even notice was gone. I said no sorry. He said if I was in need of money and I was in the mountains with him, he would give me money. I said we were not in the mountains and I was not in need of money. We sat in silence for a bit. He said it was okay, we were still friends. He said this hiccup would not ruin our friendship. I agreed. I shook his hand and walked off.

I wandered again this time to a park in the middle of a busy marketplace. It had a colorful playground, and steps that led up to a cultural center. There was slanted grass and large trees, trees that looked far older than anyone alive. I jumped up on to the stone curb that separated this slanted section from the rest of the park.

I saw that there was a large nest of kittens, many colors, all of them toppling over one another trying to get to their exhausted mother. I wasn’t even sure if all the kittens were hers, but she nursed them all the same. A small grey one was off to the side, skinny, even by the standards of these street cats. She stretched and came over to me, The Little Cat. A young boy ran up to the curb and pointed, pointed at the cats. His mother followed in hot pursuit and slapped his hand, motioning at the cats and wagging her finger. She pantomimed fleas jumping off her skin. The boy did not understand and his mom dragged him away.

The Little Cat was frail, I could feel all her bones as I pet her. She made her home on my lap, circling and circling, bumping my hand for more pets, and finally nestling a comfortable position. She began to purr, purr with such intensity I wondered how it came from such a small creature.

I sat there for some time, and again I found myself slowly cracking my notebook open, so as not to wake The Little Cat, the Little Cat on my lap.

Oh a pen feels so good in the hand but only when there is paper for it to land.

The writing was not always profound but it did not need to be. The writing only mattered in that it came out. The only writing that was bad was the writing that did not come out. The non writing. Therefore all the writing was good, because it means it made it out.

The Little Cat stirred at points, letting out little squeaks. She sneezed and wheezed when she awoke. I could tell she was not long for this world. I could see it in her fur and her eyes. She was dirty, she was dying. But she was the most lovely thing in Tangier and I felt at home here with her.

It was the first time I felt at home in ages. Is that all it takes to make a home? Two beings taking care of one another?

I resolved to go get some food and I tried my best to get The Little Cat off. She dug her nails in my jeans. She scrambled to get onto my shoulder and left claw marks in my shirt. She opened her mouth wide and let out the loudest sound she could and asked me to not leave. She circled and circled again and pretended to sleep. Then she really fell asleep again. She was in denial. I aimed my tears away from falling on her fur, but one did make it on her. She let out a sigh. I grabbed my book and continued being held hostage.

The book was making sense again. The characters were back. There disappearances unexplained, the holes in the plot not neatly sewn up, but the story moved along again, it had a motion that made sense. I was lost in it once again. Around me, I even heard English, full blooded English sentences being spoken, clearly. I no longer felt as bad as I had felt all day. But after some time, I was really hungry.

I grabbed the Little Cat softly, and kissed her on the head. I turned to place her on the grass and she outstretched her paws to hold on to me. I dropped her gently on the grass and got up before I never left. I knew I would be back.

“They are so easily amused.”

The Young Man was leaning against a post, eating a popsicle and staring at the young children running around.

“Says the one eating ice cream.”

“And so what? Ice cream is for any age.”

“So is playing.”

“Yes, yes of course. But we do not need a ground to play on, a ground just for play. We can play anywhere.”

He finished the rest of the popsicle.

“My favorite way to play is to imagine I am a spider monkey.”

He tossed the popsicle stick over his shoulders and rubbed his dirty hands on his pants.

“Look.” He assumed a crouched stance and a smile broke out on his face. He began to scratch his armpits and make monkey noises.

I laughed, as he was quite committed.

“Look look.” He jumped up on the railing and balanced precariously, continuing the monkey noises. He jumped and spun in the air. He ran up to me and snatched my book from my hand.

I ran after him, laughing all the while. He scrambled up a tree and monkey noised me from the branches. He hung from the branch with one arm, holding the book in his other.

“Very good, very good. You may have been a monkey in another life.”

“I am a monkey in this life.”

He swung down and thumbed through my book.

“This is a big book. What is it about?”

“It’s about a family. Three brothers, well four. And they have a mean dad that doesn’t take care of them and one of them kills their dad and they all have to figure out which brother it was. And all the brothers are very different but also very much the same. Well that’s what happens in it, but it’s moreso about religion and family and guilt and sin.”

“Mmmm. Seems interesting. But why so big? He couldn’t say it all in less words?”

“I mean those are big topics. You could write 1000 books and still not say everything you needed to say about them.”

“Ah. This is why I prefer cinema.”

He motioned to the CINEMA ALCAZAR that stood in the corner of the square.

“Do you know a good place to eat around here?”

“Yes, there are many. You want to try something traditional?”

“Yea absolutely.”

“You have dirham?”

Fuck, that’s right.

The Young Man dragged me along to a very specific currency exchange desk. We passed three others on the way but he swore this one would give me the best rate.

We walked in and he greeted the old spectacled man at the desk. He pointed to me and made some sort of joke I believe and the old man laughed. The Young Man put his palm out and I gave him my Euros. The old man handed him colorful bills. I eyed the exchange rates, and sure enough, it seems that The Young Man had gotten me a fairer than fair deal.

We walked around the corner to a white building, with a blue sign hat read LE SALON DE BLEU.

The Young Man led me through a kitchen entrance, shoving an errant cigarette pack on top of a bucket in his pocket as he greeted the various workers. The benefits of being low to the ground—it was easy to be slick.

He took me upstairs up a tiny steel staircase that wound and wound, until we were at the rooftop. The view was stunning, one could see the medina sprawled before us, stone, multi level, with passageways to and fro, ending in the waterfront. If you squinted, you could even make out Spain in the distance, across the ocean. I saw a soccer field not far from us, full of young boys hooting and hollering. I turned to ask The Young Man about this field, but I studied his gaze and saw that he avoided looking there. I spared him the question.

The Young Man ordered for me, I trusted The Young Man. Plus it was nice to not be in charge for once. I noticed the menu mentioned this spot was frequented by “THE STARS OF HOLLYWOOD, THE HIGH FLYING JET SET.” They listed several names, and had a cluster of black and white pictures of 50s -esque men and women. The names I did not recognize. I did not trust the menu, but I trusted The Young Man.

I looked out at the street snaking below us and saw a group of hijab clad young women laughing and bumping into one another. One of them placed her handbag over her head, resting the strap atop her head. The laughter escalated. I smiled.

The rooftop had communal seating, and two beautiful older women sat next to The Young Man. They were sirens, these women, speaking French and giggling as they spoke at The Young Man. The Young Man placated them, played his part in making them laugh with a funny face or two, but I could tell The Young Man was like a circus animal, simply doing tricks because the audience demanded it. He was cool, he was collected, but he was really desiring to speak to me, not these sirens. He never said a word to them.

The beauty of being a Young Man was one could choose to be Young in times when it suited you, and a Man in times when it suited you better.

One of the women reached across and tapped my shoulder. She said something in French with a smile and I responded in English. She raised her eyebrow.

“Oh, American? Handsome American.”

I let out a polite chuckle.

“Is it okay if you switch with your brother? My friend and I wish to smoke and we don’t want to blow in his face.”

I nodded in the affirmative, too lazy to correct them. The Young Man stood up and I stood up and we switched, but I stayed on the bench connected to him. The Woman tapped my shoulder again and laughed.

“You can sit here, more space. You’ll be more comfortable.”

I scooched over, not wanting to offend them. The Young Man made a silly face at me and I stifled my laughter. The women looked over and the Young Man went stoic.

The Young Man sensed I was ravenous and so kept the conversation to a minimum until after the first two courses were served and I was satiated. He hummed a tune to himself, a tune I could vaguely identify.

He kept humming it, until he eventually broke out into an aching crescendo. His voice was beautiful, the Young Man had talent.

“What song is that?”

“Why? Why?” It dawned on me on the second why.

I joined in and finished the line with him, “tell them that it’s HUMAN NATURE.” The women giggled and snapped with one hand, as they had their cigarettes in the other.

“So tell me, why are you here? In Tangier? Business? Pleasantries?”

“Well. I was supposed to be here with my girlfriend. But we broke up before the trip and I decided to come anyway since the money was spent.”

The women acted once again as the chorus, overhearing and rubbing my arm with a feigned frowny face. The Young Man meanwhile was staring straight ahead eating a piece of bread smeared with baba ganoush.

“You booked the trip a long time ago?”

“Uh sort of, like two months ago.”

“So this break up was sudden then?”

“Yea sort of. I mean it was in the making. It wasn’t out of the blue. But it just kind of erupted and then it all just snapped.”

“Bah. So complicated. I don’t think I am ever going to get married. Too much time-wasting. And money and going back and forth. I want to take care of myself first and my family.”

“I don’t know if you’re old enough to make that decision—but you’re not wrong that it is a lot of work. Even when you really love someone. Sometimes even more because you love them so much.”

He waved me off with a dismissive fork.

“You should focus on your work. What is it you do for work?”

“Right now? Nothing. I mean, I’m writing a novel. So a writer, I guess.”

“Nothing? Or a writer? It seems to me you should say what you are like it is a fact because it is.”

“A writer, then.”

“You must be a very good one. I don’t think writers make a lot of money usually.”

“Well that’s the thing. Doing writing full time is a new thing. I used to run my company, but things went south.”

“Ah. Your breakup makes more sense now. Either way, you made the right choice. This is the best path for you. Why be a scion, a captain of enterprise, when the most important thing is to be an artist. An artist or a soldier. Everything else is below.”

I took out my notebook and clicked my pen.

Why be a scion when you can be an artist or a soldier? (or both…WARRiOR POET) The most important duties in the world.

“What are you writing down?”

“What you just said, that’s very good.”

“You writers are so strange. You steal from the world and then talk to yourselves like little caged birds. You take scraps of words and scenes and make them into your own collage, like a bird putting together a message with crumbs of bread. See us singers, us musicians, at least we share it out loud.”

“A singer? You want to be a singer? You can definitely be a singer.”

“I am a singer. See, you should learn from me. I have no hesitation when I say that. I am a singer.”

He was right, I could learn from him. He sucked the bone clean of all its meat and tossed it on the tray.

“It is so funny when you think of a good book. It has so much life, it is like another world, a real living world. You come to be familiar with these characters and their problems. Then you get to the end and you look at the cover again and you realize the writer was just talking to himself the whole time, playing pretend.”

“Well that’s the fun part of writing. You kind of get to be an actor as well, at least the way I write. I inhabit, I get inside of the characters I write and just let them speak as if they were real.”

“Hmmm, this is interesting. Tell me more.”

I waited to finish chewing my own chicken, and took a big swig of the Moroccan tea.

“Amazing by the way,” I tapped the glass. The Young Man’s eyes widened and he nodded passionately. There were moments when he was so Young.

“Have you ever heard of Fernando Pessoa?”

“No I have not.”

“So he was this Portuguese writer that made up all these alter egos.”

“Altar ego?”

“Uh different personalities, different versions of yourself. He wrote all these books and stories using different names, I’m talking dozens and dozens of fake names. It’s like he made up all these other writers with their own distinct backgrounds and writing styles and wrote through them. He created a fake universe of creators creating in their own way.”

“Mmmmm yes, very interesting. Very twisted in the head. But interesting.” He spun his finger around in a loop by the side of his head.

We had dessert as the sun began to set. Downstairs we approached the payment desk and The Young Man began to haggle with the mustached waiter. He motioned again with an open palm, telling me to hand him 100 dirham. I had to give it to him. We both ate like kings and here we were only paying 10 dollars.

“I must head home now, my mother will be waiting for me. I will see you tomorrow, New York. Ah. Wait, how long are you here?”

“Six days.”

That night I walked home, buying a bottle of wine on the way and drank it and laid on the bed. I opened the window and looked down into the quiet side street. I saw a little girl in her blue pajamas rollerblading around, her singing echoing. She nearly knocked over several people coming home with groceries but no one minded. That made me happy. I began to laugh to myself.

Then I turned Michael on in my headphones. I listened to Human Nature and I cried. I cried and I cried, heavy cries that could not be held back. I heard him. I heard him, childlike in his curiosity but with a deep ache. Asking the question but deep down knowing he yearns for an answer that will not come. Stuck in the beauty and pain of wondering.

I cried so much I began to laugh again. Then I opened my notebook and clicked my pen.

‌The days are long. This is both good and bad, but mostly good.

I will be, only expression, no explanation

Wine drunk and nothing to do. Do nothing!

And the six days followed a similar pattern. On my own I did not desire to explore, as much as to find a stable routine. I added cigarettes to my routine the following day.

I would rise at eight o’ clock with a terrible headache, down a massive bottle of water and go to the bathroom. Then I would go back to bed and wake up at noon feeling better. I would spend the first two hours of the day on the terrace of my vacation home, doing yoga in my sweatpants and nothing else, then reading and writing. I’d eat fruits and bread by the handful.

At 2 o’ clock I would step out and invariably run into The Young Man running his scheme for the day. I’d ask him why he wasn’t at school and he would wave this off. He was in a wheelchair the second day.

“For sympathy you see.” I was impressed that he found a child sized wheelchair, although it was in rough condition. He would grow impatient with how slow it moved and would often use his feet. This defeated the purpose of his gimmick but I didn’t tell him as such. He wandered off to set up shop in an area frequented by tourists and I went my own way.

To pay The Little Cat a visit, bringing her and her siblings a can of food. I had to pull myself away from The Little Cat, otherwise she would gladly sleep on me all day. I’d head over to the main roundabout and sit on a bench there.

There was A Man In An Orange Vest, who sold whatever he was selling to everyone but me. Eventually he came over to me and offered it to me (a calling card) halfheartedly. Then There Was A Man With A Black Briefcase who spent all his time trying to sell to me (a small packet of napkins) and then only after he failed to wear me down, went to sell to everyone else. When I explained this scene to The Young Man he noted that the Orange Vest man was a classic Generalist, and the Black Briefcase Man a classic Societist. I nodded along.

Around four o’ clock, I would head for a meal at a nice Syrian cafe I found. It was very small, only four people could fit in there at once but it was mostly empty at that time. The Young Man would normally find me here and tag along, asking me questions about New York. On the third day he relayed to me how he planned to be an actor.

“After I make it big with the singing, of course. First the singing.”

“Why don’t you sing for money? Instead of your other schemes?”

This upset The Young Man greatly.

“Singing is a gift from God. I will not soil my gift for handouts on the street. I do not care for the money that comes from singing, only that people hear it and feel something.”

He made me swear to never suggest the commerciality of his singing talent. He then suggested I sing.

“I’m not really good at that.” We were standing outside, me covering my eyes with my hand as I put my sunglasses on.

The Young Man did a quick jig and bellow. His voice was beautiful, his performance full of restraint in the right way. Natural but controlled.

“You don’t need to be good. Like your writing, do you worry about it being good first? No, you first think about making people feel something and the rest follows.”

That night when I went home I found an instrumental online and recorded a little voice memo experimenting with melodies. It was nice. It made me feel something listening back to it.

The Young Man and I would normally catch the 5pm showing at the CiNEMA ALCAZAR. There were only two movies playing, some obscure French movies titled “Who Do I Belong To?” and “Thank You For Banking With Us.”

We watched them over and over, and the Young Man was delighted, absolutely delighted, as he ate ice cream and chips and laughed at all the wrong parts and cried at the right ones. It was only ever us two in the cinema. The movies made little sense but they were well acted and they were well shot and they seemed like the people who made them cared so they were good.

There was a much bigger theater with more movies where the main roundabout was but The Young Man explained it was run by Generalists. I interpreted that this meant he was a Societist.

“No.” He refused to elaborate.

“CiNEMA ALCAZAR is also run by Generalists, but they are not so forward with it. They respect the art.” I asked if all the cinemas were run by Generalists. He stopped to think.

“There is an open air cinema and a monthly cinema night on the beach. They are much more expensive. Those are run by Societists.”

He taught me over and over what was Generalist, and what was Societist.

The blue and yellow taxi, small but cheap. Generalist. The tan and red taxi, large and actually cheaper but because you had to wait for it to fill up and the fee was shared. Societist.

The soccer team was called Tangier FC. More championships in their history but a recent run of poor form. Generalist. The soccer team called Royal Tangier. The current champions but with little history. Societist.

The fruit stands that charged more for tropical fruits than for fruits. Generalist. The fruit stands that charged more for temperate fruits. Societists.

The bathrooms that were free to enter, but toilet paper cost one dirham. Generalist. The bathrooms that were two dirham to enter, but toilet paper was free. Societist.

It was starting to make sense to me, the way that my book was now feeling like it had been written precisely for me. I finished the book on the third day and the Young Man remarked that he was exhausted to see me starting one just as large on the fourth.

“And what is this one about? What did this writer have not enough space to say?”

“This one is the classic of classics. After like the Bible and the Quran. It’s about a man trying to go through hell, then purgatory, and finally to heaven. And he can’t skip ahead, he has to see all the suffering and rationalize it and then eventually redeem himself through love.”

The Young Man listened intently.

“This one, this one sounds very good.” He grabbed the book and fanned through the pages. I offered to give him the book if I finished it in time before I left but he waved me away.

He was happiest as a spider monkey, which came out at the most random of times, often in dangerous situations. We’d be walking along a balcony that rose up alongside a building and he’d hop on the railing and begin his act. One time he stole my notebook and dangled it over the edge. I laughed but was somewhat nervous. It had left my side.

“Give it back you little son of a bitch.”

The Young Man dropped the monkey act. He hopped down and handed me my book.

“Don’t say that about my mother.” I apologized and he walked off in a huff. He rejoined me later as I was leaving the liquor store, buying my daily bottle.

“Is this liquor store Generalist?” The owner looked like one, as far as I was learning to tell.

“This kind of store? This is the government my friend. Any Moroccan that goes in there is on a list. Plus that place makes too much money. Of course the government is going to have their hand in that.”

Damn. The Young Man was good.

I would stare out the window at night, letting the cigarette ashes fall to the street and think of her. I’d fill up my notebook all throughout the day. The Young Man (if he was present) would ask me what I had written. I would show it to him and he would tell me my handwriting was terrible and to read it to him.

‌I had to sever my closest attachments to refill myself and remind myself that my fulfillment matters first and foremost.

I haven’t been kneeling when I pray but I am again. Eyes open though. Eyes on it.

The tension between, Go Get It and God Will Make It Happen.

“This writing, it seems good for you but also like it is very tiring for you.” The Young Man was observant. Observant and incisive.

I kept having the same dream over and over. It played the same every time. I could now describe how it felt more acutely. It felt like my dick was an old worn out pacifier and her pussy was quicksand. I explained this dream to The Young Man, without the sex part, only implying a cuddling or hugging.

“Mmmmm yes. This is a standard dream.”

“Standard for who?”

“Standard for Bernard.”

“Bernard who?”

“He was a famous Moroccan. I believe actually French born but then he moved to Morocco. This was before our time you understand. I believe that famous Frood or however you call him stole many of his ideas. Anyways, he wrote a long book interpreting dreams. For you to awake in your dreams over and over, it means you are simply catching up to a new reality, a new timeline you are in.”

“Bernard what?” This explanation intrigued me and I wanted to go to the source. The Young Man waved me off. I rarely saw the Young Man after sunset, when he would head to the final prayer of the day.

On the evening of the fourth day I started drinking a little early and made it to a spot on the grass I had never been before. Shades off, smoke in hand, laying in the sun, with my grandma paying a visit. She was fond of butterflies and always told us she would come back as one. So whenever I saw a butterfly, I knew she was coming to spend time with me. The Young Man appeared over me like a shadow. He had on a fake cast.

“Ah, you are drunk already.”

I smiled and nodded.

“I bet you want to talk to women, no?” I realized this was his first time seeing me drunk.

“Why do you say that?”

“Well I have never been drunk. My father would hit me if he saw me drinking. But it seems that when men are drunk this is what they want. To talk to women.”

“Maybe. I don’t know if I do. I mean sure, why not?” I really didn’t know, and the more I thought about it, I actually didn’t.

“Well, that would be difficult. Moroccan girls are not very open to talking to strangers you know. Or even their own men. Maybe you have better luck with the tourist girls, but they are so afraid of Moroccan men I think it makes them afraid of all men while they are here. So you must instead deal with me. The Young Man.” He helped me up and we walked to the roundabout to people watch. I was practicing my understanding of Generalist and Societists but still couldn’t get my identification quite right. The Young Man would laugh as my guesses would be off.

At noon on the fifth day (I got out earlier to enjoy the final full day), I asked the Young Man to take me to a trinket shop to buy gifts for my parents.

“They haven’t heard from me in two weeks.”

“You’ve only been here five days.”

I waved him off. He laughed and flicked my leg.

I picked out two identical chunky mugs for them. I saw a black and white mosaic box in the window and inquired as to the price. The Young Man raised his eyebrow. The Young Man was on to me. He helped me negotiate and then when we walked outside, he asked what the box was for.

“It’s a very small box you know.”

“I know, that’s why I like it. It’s for her.”

By this point he knew who her was without further explanation.

“I don’t understand you. You tell me you are better off without her. But yet you still think about her, you buy her gifts, you write about her. You still love her?”

“I mean of course I still love her, I still care about her. My love for her doesn’t end with my possession of her. She is still a beautiful soul whether we are attached or not.”

The Young Man contemplated this seriously as well, walking with his hands behind his back.

“I feel this way about God. That he does not have to be mine and only mine and I still love him intensely.”

I nodded along. This was a good way to think about love.

“The box is small. But it is hers, all hers. Anything she puts in it will be kept safe. Because it is the box I give her. And there is not much you can keep safe so the box must be small. But the box will keep whatever is inside of it safe, that is for sure.”

The Young Man looked me in the eye and nodded in approval.

We parted ways as he had his midday prayer to attend. I hit the bottle even earlier, and found myself eating an ice cream by the steps to my home.

“Mmmm this is fucking amazing.” I murmured to myself. My beard was surely covered in ice cream and this only made things better.

Suddenly I heard a commotion. I could hear The Young Man’s voice ringing out in anger, then in despair. A gruffer sounding voice taunted him.

I stood up to peer around the corner into the bigger square but the action was happening beyond my line of sight. I walked closer and came upon the Young Man running my way. He looked awfully young, crying his eyes out. I sat with him until he calmed down.

“It is Circo. He stole the money I made today. Said I owed him for protection. I was going to give that money to my parents, to help them.”

“Circo?”

“Yes, Circo. He is a bully. He thinks because he is half Italian he is better than everyone. He intimidates all the men here and steals and is evil.”

“I mean anyone that would steal from a...” I trailed off as I remembered the Young Man didn’t like to be referred to as a kid.

“Anyone that steals is evil.”

“Oh that is not the worst of it.”

The Young Man quivered.

“He kills. He kills animals, New York.”

“What?”

“Yes. He likes to put pins in food he leaves out for the cats and the dogs. I’ve seen him kick them or beat them. He is sick.”

My stomach flipped as I thought of The Little Cat. I didn’t know if Circo’s territory extended there but the possibility made me sick.

“Well, listen. Do you want me to give you cash? How much did he take?”

The Young Man stood up and punched me with his little fists on the shoulder.

“Owww, owww. What the hell are you doing?”

He ran off crying. The Young Man was gone.

I spent the rest of the day drinking heavier and heavier. Smoking and smoking. This Circo fellow, I think I knew what he looked like. He had been one of the first ones to accost me with a fake friendliness on my first day. Whenever I passed him by he was smoking hash and had dark eyes, empty eyes, and was surrounded by a crowd of lackeys. They had on tracksuits and flip flops, and sold cigarette packs.

I kept drinking but I knew I was delaying the inevitable. I had the windows open but the heat was unbearable because the heat was in my head. It felt good to be angry however. Being sad was exhausting. It was self pitying. But anger, anger was unfamiliar to me and it felt powerful.

As the sun began to set, I smoked my final cigarette and flicked the butt down to the street. I went to find Circo.

Circo was where he always was. The good for nothing animal killer. The evil bully. No one liked him, those who were with him were simply afraid of him. He knew this and it made him worse inside and he brought it all out, and made it everyone else’s problem how much he hated himself.

“Hello friend. You need hashish?” He greeted me with open arms.

I pushed him, and his posse looked on in shock.

“Hey brother, what is your problem? Did I do something to offend you?”

“Not me. My friend, the Young Man. So yes, me.”

Circo laughed once he understood. He took a puff of his cigarette and put it out underneath his flip flop. He was not tall and he was skinny, skinnier than me, but his face was nasty, with a big scar, and most importantly his eyes had nothing but darkness in them. He had many men with him. And nothing to live for.

“The Young Man? You mean the reject? His own parents don’t even love him. He’s a dirty little beggar, and a gay one that sings like a girl.”

“Go fuck yourself you pussy.” I felt amazing.

“Why do you care so much about him?”

“Oh it’s not just him. I know about how you’re a sick fuck and you like to torture the animals around here.” I was spitting and slurring my words.

Circo had no reply for this, only a smile and then a spit towards my feet.

I threw the first punch. I got him good, a couple of times. But I was no match for the flurry, the onslaught of his gang. I imagine the fact that I was an American citizen saved them from really giving it to me, and no doubt some onlookers that stepped in.

I remembered very little, only that I came to in an unfamiliar (but nice) bathroom, where my head was pounding and I was throwing up in the toilet. I felt in pain all over and so swollen. I wiped my mouth and washed my face and hands. I looked in the mirror. Holy shit. I was unrecognizable. My clothes were caked in blood, some my own, some surely others. I had gauze on part of my face. I felt incredible inside, despite my external discomfort.

I limped outside and was greeted by a young woman in a hijab sitting on a chair. She was reading a book, a French translation of the one I had just read.

“Oh you need to lie down, you cannot be moving around.” She put her book down and made me lie down on the couch. She brought me and ice pack and water.

“Who are you?” She laughed.

“I am The Young Lady.”

“Generalist or Societist?” She had a puzzled look on her face as I briefly lost consciousness.

“Your friend The Young Man brought you here. You were in very bad shape. He knows I am studying to be a doctor so he thought I could help. I’ve done my best to clean you up, but you probably should go to a hospital tomorrow.”

I felt around. Seemed like no broken bones at least.

“You are lucky they didn’t stab you.”

It hurt to talk so I stayed quiet and stared ahead.

She returned to her chair and picked up her book.

“Thank you.” I croaked out.

“Oh, it was nothing, nothing really. Believe me, you should be thanking your friend. He apparently simulated a police siren and that sent your attackers running.”

The Young Man was magic. The Young Man was genius. The Young Man was too Young to be this Man.

She fidgeted with her pages, not turning them.

“I’m sure he will be back soon. He said he had to resolve something and he would be back.”

I nodded and winced at the pain.

“Yes, it’s best if you stay as still as possible.”

I floated in and out of sleep.

“I’m sorry if I am uncomfortable. I just am not normally alone with a man who isn’t my family. If my parents were home it would be okay, but this feels all strange to me. Not that you are strange. I mean you are a stranger. But yes this is not normal for me. I am sure you are nice though. The Young Man had many good things to say about you. He sees you as a brother.”

“That’s a good book you’re reading.”

“Oh, this? Yes. It gets a little confusing in the middle but it picks up again.”

Ah. Okay. Not just me. Never just you.

“Yes.”

“The Young Man tells me you are a writer. And from New York. That is like from a movie.”

“Definitely a writer, not a fighter.” I tried to let out a chuckle but it became more of a cough. She humored me and smiled.

“What about you? You like being a doctor?”

“Me? Yes, yes I love the idea of it. I mean not just the idea, I love it. It is hard though.”

“Very.”

“But I don’t know. It seems like there’s not a lot of freedom in it. Not the way being a writer seems like.”

“Freedom?”

“As in, space to think freely. To explore. I am not even sure what it is I am looking for but it seems like there is something to find, something that medicine won’t let me.”

“Well, you have the rest of your life to do that. You don’t need to be a writer or an artist full time to do that.”

“I suppose. But you read these books, and you watch movies, and listen to music, and you listen to people like the Young Man or even the way you talk and you sense that at least the artists are closer than the rest of us. No matter how much they suffer.”

I had no notes on that.

“Say, how long have you known the Young Man?”

“Mmmm, since he was dropped off. He was always social, very social, even when he was smaller. Like 2 years I think.”

“What do you mean dropped off? For boarding school? Speaking of, how come he doesn’t go to school. He always does this when I ask him anything serious. Did the same when I asked him where he lives, what his parents do.”

I pantomimed his wave and she laughed. She pantomimed his eyebrow raise and I laughed. The Young Man was an icon.

“Boarding school? I mean, there are a few women at the mosque who have tried to get him signed up for the free school by the park, and even one family that offered to take him in, but The Young Man resists any attempt to fit into the system, to play by rules.”

“Take him in?”

“Yes. The Young Man is an orphan.”

“A what? He’s always talking about his family.”

“Oh yes, he knew his family until he was 8. He was raised by them. But apparently something happened and they could not afford to raise him anymore. So they dropped him off here with his uncle. Except his uncle’s wife was a horrible lady, and his uncle died in a car accident and the aunt moved away and so the Young Man was on his own within a couple of months.”

My head was spinning. This hurt more than the fight.

“There’s no way. He talks about them so realistically, like they’re who he hangs out with everyday.”

“Yes. It is sad. It is his way to cope. He never wants for anything. He is always crafty as I’m sure you know, in getting what he needs and if ever truly needed something, everyone is quick to provide it for him. He sleeps in a little nook by the mosque that is well insulated. Again, people have offered to take him in but he is too proud.”

The pieces started coming together.

“Tell me, is it also a lie that he reads?”

“Yes, of course. He frequents the library and he will ask the librarian to tell him summaries of stories, but no he does not read. He sings though, amazingly you know. He is smart, just not very learned.”

I felt around and realized my notebook was not in my back jean pocket.

“Wait, my notebook? Did someone find it?” The Young Woman shook her head with wide eyes.

The Young Man walked in. He had a bruise of his own on his head.

“You are very lucky my brother. Very lucky and very stupid. Come here.” He ran up to me and squeezed me hard. I did not mind that it hurt a great deal. The tears welled up in my eyes. I felt his own fall on my head.

He pulled out my notebook from his own pocket and smiled.

I held it close to my heart when he handed it to me and gave him a big kiss on the forehead.

“That’s a lovely burgundy,” said the Young Woman.

I clicked the pen and wrote.

No grand mysteries no more, no confusion over feelings. The emotions flow, no more looking for signs or reasons, for only enjoying the dreams, the ideas of things. At peace, be, be be! Chase pleasure and fulfillment (and live with the duality of that), knowing you are all the love and energy you need—but the beauty (and the pain) comes in sharing, in connecting.

The next day I woke up feeling everything. Inside and out. But I felt I had gone wrong in my own way, which was preferable than going right in someone else’s.

I could walk and do everything just fine, gingerly and with pain, but nothing felt critical. I packed my bag and headed for the door. I knew The Young Man would be out there.

He was looking sharp as ever in a little zoot suit. Riddled with holes but he made it sharp.

We sat there wordlessly for some time.

“How come you kept pretending you knew how to read?” I would not call him out on his other lie, but I had to call him out on something.

“Well you were so big into it, it would make me silly if I didn’t read.”

“I don’t care if you don’t read. You’re so freaking smart without it. I would want you to learn because you would enjoy it though. I swear. It’s better than a movie. To me at least.”

“Why is that?”

“Because it is more intimate. Writing is done by someone all by themselves. It is the closest thing we have to a human in art form. It is so private, so raw.”

“You writers. So serious about yourselves.”

“You’re damn right I’m a writer.” The Young Man gave me a high five.

“I wish you could come visit New York.”

“Bah. I will not visit. They will beg me to come and only then will I. Once I’m older of course and my father cannot stop me from going. My mother will come with me though, she always wanted to visit.”

I pulled The Young Man in close to me, resting his head on my side. He felt so Young.

“But you, New York, I will see you on the red carpet soon.”

“Red carpet? I told you I’m a writer.”

“And so? It is about time we have a writer star. Again, like we used to. This would be good for the world. Not just the singers and the actors and the models and the businessmen in the spotlight. But someone who knows how to think by themselves and for themselves. A writer. You can be that. You are that.” The Young Man poked me in the chest.

I felt the tears streaming down.

“And I will learn to read for you, only you, do not worry. Your first book will be my first read. I will be waiting here, understanding you through your books. And once you have your big breakup, you and your starlet part ways, you fly back here to Tangier and I will build you back up again. No more fights this time though.”

I wiped my tears and squeezed him again. He squeezed me back strong, like a Man. He nestled his head into my chest, like a Man. He cried too, like a Man. We were both Young Men.

“Say, you never answered me. Are you a Generalist or a Societist?”

He raised his eyebrow and put his hand under his chin in an exaggerated thinkers pose. Then he rose suddenly.

“Oh, please. I am The Young Man. I have no label. I only follow myself. And God.”

I began to tickle him. We said goodbye when I got in the taxi, right after he negotiated the price down for me.

He had asked me if I wanted to go say goodbye to The Little Cat but I couldn’t do that, no way. He pledged to take care of the Little Cat and all the Little Cats, and to stay away from Circo. To outsmart him. These promises were the only thing holding me together. I put my bag in the taxi, then turned around. He was Young again, and hardened. He simply reached his hand out to shake mine.

“Safe travels, brother.” I was Young, very Young and I could barely get a word out.

I saw him standing there, at attention as we drove off.

The tears subsided on the drive over, my head pressed against the glass.

I made it to the runway before they restarted. I opened my notebook to write something down. The pen clicked but the words didn’t come out. That didn’t devastate me, not like it had in the past. The words always came out, in their own time.

The seashell fell out of the pocket.

Someone stepped on it before I managed to grab it. Half of it was in tiny pieces, halfway to dust. It blew away. The other half was still intact. It was tinier than ever. It could fit perfectly in the little box. But I put it back in the notebook. It could fall out again, in its own time. Something else would go in the little box.

And the notebook would always be full, always by my side.

7 years old.

I was at my cousin Hector’s apartment. He lived near the Elmhurst Av. 7 stop. He was my first reference of cool. Fly. Fresh. With the flip phone, the baggy jeans, the blue Yankee fitted and Concord 11s. Wore his white tees for a couple weeks and then bought new ones from the bodega. Liked them crisp. Long (fake) chain.

He was heating up pizza rolls for us as we waited for my sister and mom to get back from shopping. His room smelled like Polo Blue and weed. He would pull out a thick wad of bills, swiftly disrobe them of their rubber band and hand me a couple singles so I could go buy us Arizonas.

He had just gotten FIFA 2004. The one with Henry, Del Piero and Ronaldinho on the cover—running heads down, kits billowing.

I wasn’t allowed to have video games until I was in middle school. So any second I got to play them was coveted. Hector had his phone pressed to his ear while holding his controller. Hushed voice. Playful, teasing.

I was just focused on which team I was gonna pick.

He mouthed to me, “Premier”. Indicating which league I should pick a team from. He was an Arsenal fan. Locked and loaded.

Blue was my favorite color. It took only four flicks until I found that blue.

1. BIG SPENDER(S)

Chelsea spends money like it ain’t a thing. Whether it’s a Russian oligarch funding it or a peak 2020s financial amalgamation of private equity vultures—the bankroll has no limit baby. Transfer records broken over and over and over.

2. RULE BREAKER(S)

When the money comes out of the firehose, you better believe that makes people mad. So the pocket watchers get to work scheming. Time for us to finesse. Creative accounting. Hit squad of lawyers. Loopholes to stretch money across time. Loan armies. Paying fat fines because that’s the price of doing big business. Dad always said think bigger.

3. IMPULSIVE

Chelsea invented the mid season manager carousel. Take them out back. Little patience. It didn’t matter if you had a great fondness with the fans, if you had even won a title the year before. If you don’t sustain the greatness, you’re gone. A legacy of lightning.

4. FLAIR

Raw players, full of themselves. The youngest team in the league. Passionate, reckless, hard working villains. Win at all costs.

5. ENTERTAINER(S)

Fighting refs. Last second heroics. Tragic collapses. Double digit shootouts. Chelsea is blockbuster entertainment. The 2010s golden boy was a testament to that. Magic in motion. Chelsea puts on a show. Theater on the pitch.

6. ORIGINAL(S)

A club legend who was so iconic—a position was named after him. The French maestro Claude Makelele, who redefined what it meant to be a defensive midfielder. His lineage has followed suit. Essien. Kante. Caicedo. All humility, all power, all engine.

7. HEART

Chelsea never gives up. The bigger the pressure the more better our chances. We love to be counted out—that’s when we dig in.

8. WINNER(S)

The most winningest club in soccer history. The only team to win every domestic, continental and international tournament available to them. Captains that are lions of the sport. World Cup champions. The only London club with a European cup.

9. MYTHICAL

Unforgettable.