I definitely wasn’t thinking about Perez Hilton in 2016. But now I am. This Ringu-ass video is following me around without me having even seen it. I feel like I can only hold out for so long before it gets me. Before it infects my system. It feels like COVID in March of 2020, when it felt like only interesting or worldly people got it. I held on for another two years before I officially tested positive, something that made me feel both proud and also sad.

Regardless, it caught up to me. It always does. You can’t outrun fate. And this video of Perez Hilton covered in blood and waiting for the police to arrive to his presumably weird Miami house to intervene is my destiny. I don’t care for Perez Hilton. The opposite, actually. I can’t hate someone I don’t know, other than a few people, and giving him that much brain power feels like an affront to my own intelligence and integrity. I can say without a shred of doubt that I don’t like him. In fact, I’d go as far as to say he’s one of the worst homosexual ambassadors our community has had over the last few decades. In the last decade, he’s been surpassed by a few others, mostly out of their technological potential to annihilate humanity and democracy. But his low vibrational impact on pop culture is no small feat. To put it simply, Perez Hilton is an evil faggot. The lowest of the low. The kind whose hatred towards women and desire to inflict pain on other queers feels supernatural.

That said, I don’t want him to kill himself, or hurt himself, or rub his own blood all over his face and body like Arnold Schwarzenegger with mud at the end of Predator. It is nothing I wish on anyone, evil people included. Evil people who spent years terrorizing famous women with Microsoft Paint-drawn cocks and cum drips and tears and outing gay actors and selling t-shirts on his website after Heath Ledger died with “Why Couldn’t It Be Britney?” printed on them. The website that I regretfully frequented in my daily devotion to the celebrity quasar occurring in the salad days of Audrina Partridge’s Los Angeles.

If I had to be technical, I’d call myself a DListed Gay, first and foremost. Where DListed was a joy to read, Perez Hilton felt compulsive. I simply had to look. I had to take it in. I was part of the problem. I was giving him clicks. I helped him make his millions. Michael K used DListed to satirize celebrity with heart and self-deprecation. And most importantly, it was funny. Genuinely hilarious. You can’t fake funny! Perez’s takedowns, alleged to be comedy, were the opposite. Loud cruelty does not a comedian make. More than that, though, it felt like he was quenching a genuine blood thirst. I can armchair analyze him and say he was suffering the same velvet rage churning inside me and every other gay. He wanted to unleash the seismic pain inside him upon the world. His savviness at early social media gave him the means to crop dust society with his wretchedness. That might be giving him too much credit. He’s just mean.

I’m not giving any of us much credit, either. Perez’s brand of fuckery didn’t take much to catch on. It was contagious, triggering a perma-latent virus inside all of us. It was the beginning of the internet, the real internet, where grossness is hurled into the dark with ease. Regardless of our collective accountability in the glitzy pageant of smoldering misogyny and homophobia at that particular time, Perez enjoyed hurting people. No reform in the wake of Tyler Clementi’s suicide, or turning over a new leaf in front of Ellen DeGeneres, or an alleged Sepsis-borne recommitment to Catholicism can erase that. Last month, he emerged from his newfound religious zeal and went on Sean Hannity’s podcast (of course) to reveal he’d made amends with Khloe Kardashian over Instagram DMs, and desired to apologize to others he had famously wronged, like Britney and Neil Patrick Harris. He also quoted some wisdom shared by Nick Cannon about “counsel culture.” Whatever that means.

Still, I was horrified to hear what had happened to him the other night. And horrified that one of my first thoughts was wondering if this was a ploy for sympathy. That’s probably on me for being a jaded hag. But his track record doesn’t serve him any good. Maybe I’m wrong. People can change, sure. I changed. If Perez was truly suffering from psychosis — something I, even in my worst mental anguish, have fortunately never endured, I have tremendous sympathy. I am glad he is not dead, and more importantly, I am glad his children weren’t present. May he be showered in God’s grace, etc.

There’s a world where his crash out, as the kids say, is eerily similar to the unspeakably tragic standoff at Britney’s home in 2008, where shortly after, paparazzi swallowed the ambulance transporting her to Cedars-Sinai.

But I’m not sure I can let him have that. That makes me feel guilty. Mostly everyone deserves a second chance, a clean slate. With him, it feels impossible. If it’s cosmic irony or not — a lesson he can learn. The worst, most gruesome moment of his life viewed by millions of people around the world. I don’t know, and I don’t think I want to know. Just like I don’t want to watch the video. I can’t see that. I know me, and I know I will obsess over the image of his blood-soaked face and wide eyes over and over until my brain launders it into the catalogue where all the other nightmare images I’ve seen on social media go when my psyche needs to dull their power for preservation. That doesn’t mean I don’t need to look. I feel compelled to. The night it happened, the same night I turned 10 in my recovery, I nearly had to throw my phone against the wall to keep myself from watching it before bed. I wish I’d had this same discipline when I leapt from my bed at close to midnight on a Thursday, after a friend texted me to come do MDMA with them, or when my dealer, who called me Corey — something I never corrected him on out of deluded reasoning that somehow, he would be so offended I never corrected him that he would no longer give me drugs — texted me that he was outside. That was 10 years ago, though. A different life. A different me.

I can’t have TikTok Live Perez in my head. I can’t look at my beautiful husband and our perfect dog after having glimpsed something so wretched. I have my priorities now. Priorities are hard won for me. I didn’t have them when I was loaded and high. I definitely had strategies, though. Strategies to ease my time-traveling journey into the void. Like alternating between the two liquor stores on my block so the same employees working at each wouldn’t see me every single day, or holding my arm up in the air while I was dancing at the rave so my phone would have reception for my dealer, or drunk dialing concerned friends or smoking cigarettes in bed and crying like I was Petra von Kant. Instead of custom frocks strewn across a white shag rug, I had Slim Jim wrappers under my bed and unopened bags of clothes my mom bought for me on Amazon piled up in my closet — clothes she believed, I assume, would cure me of the pain.

“Lexapro will do that,” Adam’s gay guy doctor told him.

So did Adam’s gay guy therapist, and Adam’s psychiatrist, a nice straight woman in her late 40s who he only met with four times a year over Zoom. Lexapro, Wellbutrin, Finasteride, Minoxidil. All of the things in a gay guy smoothie. Plus, PrEP, which he took even though he didn’t fuck. It felt ritualistic at this point, something reflexive, like the sign of the cross. Adam felt like if he didn’t take his PrEP each morning, despite not taking anonymous raw loads in his ass, he would somehow die the moment he stepped out of his apartment. Stakes made life more interesting, at least. If he wasn’t fucking, or even fapping to Pornhub on his phone, he could at least invent some new mythology. It wasn’t that he didn’t get hard anymore, either. He was only in his late 30s, and had never had any kind of challenge with that. Sometimes, out of nowhere, like when that one straight guy at the gym with a Joker card tattooed on his shin made brief eye contact, he would get hard. Also, every morning when he woke up. He read that was a sign of decent health, but figured that was a wives’ tale. In any case, it wasn’t a physical thing why he didn’t cum for an entire year.

He tried to get to the bottom of it with his therapist, Dr. Frank, a homosexual in his 60s who looked like Shel Silverstein, which at first made Adam uncomfortable. There was a period in middle school where Adam would jerk off to Shel Silverstein’s author’s photo in the back of his copy of The Giving Tree. He got over it fast because Dr. Frank was a good therapist. At least, the best therapist Adam had ever had, which wasn’t saying much.

Still, Frank helped Adam realize he was definitely depressed-depressed, not just gay guy depressed. And also anxious. Very anxious. Panic attacks. Hives. Diarrhea. His anxiety had been minimal till the pandemic and the few years after that; he wore a mask till 2022 and alienated a few of his friends. His friend Kyle, who was the defacto leader of the group, stopped inviting him to his place to drink and do drugs before going out to whatever bar or warehouse party they paid covers to get into.

Sorry, Kyle had told Adam via text, the mask is just bad vibes.

Despite Kyle’s banishment, Adam was still included in plans. He wore a mask to a sex party once. He spitroasted a twink in a Dodgers cap with his friend Corey, and mid-face fuck he locked eyes with Corey who tapped his own chin and mouthed “Lose the mask.” Adam kept it on. He even included “I mask because I care about people” in his Hinge profile bio. A few guys matched with him just to message him that masking was a lie.

Fuck yourself, Adam wrote.

Then, on a random Wednesday in 2024, after almost four years, and at least six friendships, one quasi-relationship with an entertainment lawyer literally named “Jett,” and thousands of arguments in various comment sections and on Reddit and with his immediate and extended family in person and on Facebook, Adam stopped wearing a mask. No one acknowledged it except his cousin Kayleigh at a family reunion at the beach, who told Adam that his skin looked worse than it ever had.

“Probably because of the mask,” she said.

Adam told her he’d probably saved dozens, maybe even hundreds of lives with his mask, and if it caused a few breakouts, then so be it.

“You should go on Accutane,” Kayleigh said.

“You should stop wearing colored contacts,” Adam said.

Adam did go on Accutane, shortly after he got home from the family reunion. His skin cleared up. He also started Ozempic. Or least some Frankenstined version of it. He’d gained weight during the pandemic. Nothing too extreme. A pound here, 13-27 pounds there. All of his doctors, including Dr. Therese, his psychiatrist, told Adam that rapid weight gain and a sustained lack of exercise could contribute to a lack of sexual drive.

The last time Adam was naked in front of anyone was at the men’s spa in Koreatown. He’d been a few times before, with friends and alone, and left work early on a Thursday and blocked off two hours before he was due at a birthday dinner. It was crowded at 4 pm; he forgot no one really worked in this city. He didn’t like the sauna. Being wet and blind wasn’t erotic to him. He preferred to wade in the large heated pool on the upper level. It had a good view of the entire venue for watching. No one was watching Adam back, though. Even the ancient men who hunched over when they walked. Adam wasn’t old, but he certainly wasn’t young enough to ogle with impunity but out of shape enough to ignore. He was something in between. Naturally, he wanted to die. Instead, he went to the dark room with clay floors as a last ditch effort. Adam would cum here, even if it meant doing it alone.

Immediately upon entering, he was met with a dozen pairs of eyes, reflecting the light from the hallway, impatient with this intrusion. Five or six hot younger guys were on the floor, jerking and sucking each other, while the old guys sat on the bench around them, watching and stroking; Adam assumed at least two or three of them had lost their prostates to cancer, which made him feel guilty for judging them. Adam stood there, unable to bring himself to sit on the beach, even when one man shuffled over to make room for Adam. He held his towel to his crotch and watched. There looked to be a few guys Adam’s age on the floor. At least one in his forties. The difference was, they had bodies. Adam knew he had a good face, at least, but without a body, he was simply a floating head. One young guy close to Adam’s feet — a late 20s twunk with a muscle-ass — was in the middle of a particularly laborious blowjob; his back was to Adam, but the cock he was hoovering was big enough that the work this young man seemed to be putting in was necessary. Adam suddenly felt proud watching him. Patriotic. One of our greatest soldiers, Adam thought.

Right then, the sucker turned around to re-position himself and caught Adam’s gaze. Adam realized he knew him. His name was Ty or Tom or something. Tyler. He briefly dated one of Adam’s friends and talked loudly at Adam about wanting to get his BA at a bar once during Pride. Tyler made an almost accusatory face at Adam before settling into familiarity. He raised his eyebrows and cracked a grin, almost like a challenge. Watch me. He went back to it.

Maybe it was the heat of the floor, the pool, or his failed attempt to withstand the humidity of the spa, but Adam suddenly felt woozy. The blood rushed to his head, and all the sucking and moaning from the writhing mass on the ground dissipated into a ringing sound. Adam’s vision went dark, forest green and then black. When he opened his eyes, he was in the lobby of the spa, wrapped in towels, while an EMS examined him. He’d collapsed. Dehydration, they told him. Adam pulled heavy gulps from a giant Arrowhead water bottle, other spa gays walked in, gawking at the scene; whispering to the steely woman manning the front desk.

He skipped the birthday dinner and stayed inside for the rest of the weekend. On Sunday night, Tyler messaged him on Instagram and asked him if he was all right.

Did watching me suck dick make you faint? Tyler wrote.

Haha, Adam wrote back. Just dehydrated.

I majored in Kinesiology, Tyler wrote. It’s so important to stay hydrated, especially at your age.

At my age? Adam thought.

He didn’t even know what his current age was, somewhere between twelve and sixty-seven.

“The trauma and humiliation of that event,” Dr. Frank said later in therapy. “I could see that contributing to this sexual anorexia.”

“That part,” Adam said.

“Huh?” Dr. Frank asked.

Adam didn’t elaborate. He’d never said something like that ever, let alone aloud. That part. It would surely haunt him for years to come.

“Why can’t I just be normal anorexic?” Adam asked, changing the subject.

He couldn’t even starve himself without help. The GLP did help, for sure. In addition to his obsessive, daily walkabouts through the city, which wasn’t particularly pedestrian-friendly. Whenever it was time to refill his prescription, Adam would lie and say his weight loss was far less than it was.

Slow and steady, the app chat bot told him once.

He kept rereading the message. Slow and steady. He wished it had just come out and said “That’ll do pig.” Regardless, Adam was skinny now. He kept it a secret for a while, letting his friends stew in resentment.

“Just walking a lot!” He’d say. “Sometimes I add a weighted vest.”

One night during a group dinner, Kyle, who was back into social rotation with Adam, mentioned he’d been in a conspiracy k-hole on Reddit about the government pushing Semaglutide to prepare us for food shortages in coming decades. One by one, each gay announced his own journey with Peptides. Some current, some past. A few friends looked at Adam, waiting for his admission.

“I’ve taken it before,” Adam said.

“Ha!” Kyle yelped.

Corey, Adam’s spitroast friend, who brokered peace between Adam and Kyle, patted Kyle’s hand. Quiet.

"Sorry,” Kyle said to Adam, smiling big. “I just knew you were on it.”

That night, Adam tried to jerk off for the first time in nine months. An entire gestation of nothing. He watched some Twitter porn; an anonymous hung vers pounding men up and down the Bay Area. Eventually, Kyle yelling “Ha!” played on loop on his brain. A boomerang of viscousness. Adam could feel something changing. Something turning. His stomach dropped like he was falling and his eyes welled up. He stroked, faster and faster, until he could nearly hear the sound of sucking from the clay room at the spa. The limbs on top of limbs. The old man making room for him, without even looking into his eyes. He stopped jerking. Dr. Frank told Adam this was progress, which depressed him even more. But he trusted him.

“You’re the doctor,” Adam said,

“I’m not a doctor,” Dr. Frank said.

“Why have I been calling you Dr. Frank?” Adam asked.

Dr. Frank shrugged.

“Some clients do,” he said. “I don’t mind.”

Yeah, I’m sure, Adam thought.

Dr. Frank challenged Adam to seize this window and try being intimate with someone.

“It doesn’t have to be sex,” he said.

“I’m not downloading Sniffies,” Adam said.

“It doesn’t have to be sex,” Dr. Frank said.

“OK, so I shouldn’t download Sniffies?” Adam asked.

“You can download Sniffies,” Dr. Frank said.

“Have you ever used Sniffies?” Adam asked.

Dr. Frank cleared his throat and sat back in his chair, regaining some neutrality.

“No,” Dr. Frank said.

“How come?” Adam asked.

“Because,” Dr. Frank said.

“Because?” Adam asked.

“We’re talking about you experimenting with intimacy,” Dr. Frank said.

“Okay,” Adam said. “I’ll download Sniffies.”

He didn’t download Sniffies, or redownload Grindr, or Feeld, or Scruff, or Hinge. Adam didn’t do anything for another three months, until one weekend morning when he decided to go to the spa again, a full year after he fainted in the clay room. He felt like a sleeper agent. He drove the speed limit to the spa, parked in the garage, took the rickety elevator up to the lobby and wordlessly checked in at the front desk of the spa, avoiding eye contact with the woman manning it. She wasn’t the same one who watched him get treated by EMS. Instead of dropping his head like he planned to, in case there was a CCTV photo him printed out somewhere, Adam looked right at the front desk woman. He handed her his driver’s license as collateral, took a locker key and shuffled inside.

The locker room was mostly empty, and Adam didn’t feel any hornier than he had the day before or six months ago as he disrobed at his locker, and the cold air hit his flesh and rose it up. But he caught a glimpse of his lean body in a nearby window and figured his new form would at least raise his stock in the yard sale out on the spa floor. Maybe the sexy would follow. Regardless, he wasn’t leaving until he came. The sign on the door before he pushed open the doors read:

NO CELL PHONES

NO SEXUAL ACTIVITY

FOUR HOURS MAXIMUM

Four hours. He’d stay that long if he had to. He’d stay longer. And really, what could they do? He’d paid for this! Thirty dollars to be naked and risk a wart on the sole of his foot. If he wasn’t outside and dressed at four hours and one minute, would they call the Spa Police? Would they march on in and pull him out of a whirlpool? Would they drag him naked along the grey tile floor? Would he finally cum as they did? He felt deviant thinking these things, which bummed him out and didn’t feel fair.

Walking into the actual spa, a towel around his waist, was he first truly sexual thing he’d done in a year and he felt desperate and pathetic. He wanted to go back to his locker and call Dr. Frank and demand to know, right then and there, why he was so fucked up. He figured, via text, that Dr. Frank could walk him through cruising, encourage him to go into the clay room and not just sit on the bench or stand in the corner but get down on that warm slick floor and stroke his medium-sized cock. Then he thought about just getting his phone so he could look up pictures of Shel Silverstein and stroke. He thought of the sign of the door. NO CELL PHONES! He remembered one time seeing a guy texting on his phone and getting hissed and pointed at by some older gays.

“Phone!” one of them shouted.

The guy turned bright red, smiling sheepishly before ducking out to disappear forever. Adam wouldn’t be the cell phone guy. Especially after fainting.

He looked around the spa; it was 1/4 the crowd on the day he collapsed. That boded well. Less pressure. Training wheels. The crowd was mostly older guys whose bodies looked like coral reefs. There were a few cute guys. One was tall, like 6’5, showering off. He had a massive dick. Unfathomably big, even semi-hard. It was so large it almost grossed Adam out. It was a life form, a previously undiscovered species. There could be no joy from that, only pain. Still, Adam wanted it. He wanted Tall Guy. But he’d have to play it right.

Of course, every man nearby was fixated on Tall Guy’s penis. But aside from Grendel a few showers down, Adam felt confident that he was one of the best looking guys in there. That was proven when he stepped into a shower and at least a few of the eyes made their way over to him. He was being beheld. Adorned with gifts. Worshipped. He scrubbed some of the body wash onto himself and rubbed, intentionally. Manly. He was putting on a show. Even Tall Guy flashed him a smile and nod. Adam returned it robotically, letting his big dick neighbor know it was courtesy nothing more.

Adam slipped into the giant heated pool, ducking his head under and breaking the surface. He took a breath and looked up at the skylights above, and the blanched Saturday summer light that shone through. A piano cover of Katy Perry’s “Firework” played, echoing through the open chamber. Accompanying the bad music, he could hear soft chatter. It felt like church. A few men, some old, some Adam’s age, and one cute one his early 20s, walked by the pool. They were different shapes, overweight, underweight, thin dicked, thick dicked. Tall, short, regular. They tried to engage with Adam, tried to coax a smile. Nothing would work. Adam would close his eyes and not open them again till they were gone. It was a Time to Cum. Not a Time to Smile.

The young cute one waded over to where Adam sat, and sidled up next to him. Despite his looks, he had a nervous energy, new soul energy, that made Adam feel disgusted. He was desperate.

“It’s my first time here,” He said, after a few minutes of stillness.

Adam ignored him, keeping his eyes closed as tight as he could.

The young guy gulped, his breath trembled. He turned his head, then turned it back towards Adam. He could hear him blink.

“I’m Jared,” he said.

Adam’s eyes remained closed; his mouth locked.

The young one, now known as Jared, breathed in once and then out again. He waited a few moments.

“Fucking faggot,” he said under his breath, like he was bursting.

He hopped out of the pool right there, splashing Adam as he did. Adam could hear him hurry off, his feet slapping against the edge of the pool. When he knew he was in the clear, Adam opened his eyes and saw Jared hurry down the steps and across the spa floor. His towel barely around his waist. When Jared got to the exit, he slipped landing on his side. Adam flinched. Unseen men on the floor below let out gasps. Adam, motionless, watched Jared’s bare ass hit in the tile, his cock and balls mash against it.

“Are you all right?” One voice yelled out.

The Tall Guy with the horse cock, still marinating in his endless shower, hurried over to help Jared, fully naked; his dick slapping against his legs like a pendulum. He knelt down next to Jared, his dick probably touching the floor, and placed a hand on Jared’s shoulder. Adam raised his head up a little now, trying to get a better view. He could see Jared standing up, the Tall Guy steadying him. He could see Jared had tears in his eyes. He was embarrassed, nodding away concern from Tall Guy and another older man who made his way over. Adam could hear Jared say something like “It’s good, it’s good.” Just then Jared looked up at Adam, and saw that he was watching. He glared. Then turned and hurried through the exit.

Suddenly, Adam got hard. He decided it was time. He climbed out of the pool, and without even wrapping his towel around his waist. He walked down the steps and across the floor, walking in a way he’d never walked before. Bull-legged. Butch. Like the guys he went to high school with when they approached a urinal. He could feel everyone watching him now. The whole room. The Tall Guy, still standing where Jared was, moved aside for Adam, who finally looked over and grinned at him. Adam exited and looked back before making his way to the clay room.

He opened the door, letting the light pour in like last time. Only now, there weren’t lemur eyes greeting him. Just one man sitting cross-legged in the far corner of the room and meditating, and one man in his 70s laying on his back on the bench, lightly tapping his dick. Neither of them acknowledged Adam. It didn’t matter. Adam spread his towel out on the floor, got down on his back and waited. He waited for the room to fill up, which it did. No one laid down on the floor with him, though. They just stood or sat on the bench. He waited for Tall Guy to join, which he did. And when Adam started to suck his huge, ugly cock for everyone to see, he thought of Tyler, who he watched vacuum another Himalayan dick right before he fainted. Tyler was a brave soldier, a son of America. And now Adam would be too. Right here in this same clay room, before ten or so men who he rejected, gobbling up the dick of this man he pretended to reject. It took five minutes for Tall Guy to cum. When he did, he yelled out, which Adam impulsively muffled with his own hand, thinking of the sign.

NO SEXUAL ACTIVITY.

As Adam swallowed, he could hear some of the other men cumming around him, quiet. Muted. The Tall Guy smiled and sat up, giving Adam a kiss he didn’t want.

“That was so hot,” he said to Adam, not even trying to whisper. “Can I suck you?”

Adam wanted to start crying. He wasn’t going to cum. Not like this. All of this had been a waste.

“No,” he said, nearly shoving Tall Guy out of the way. He stood up and walked out, forgetting his towel. He didn’t even shower. He dressed as quickly as he could, grabbed his credit card, and rode the elevator down to the garage.

When the elevator opened, Adam all but ran to his car — one of three parked on this level — clicking the unlock button more times than he needed to. He opened the car and sat inside and panted for a moment, finding his breath. The seatbelt alarm dinged as he stared out at the dark garage, the dim light from the elevator bank seemed like it was miles ahead. He could barely make out the piano music playing faintly over the loudspeakers. What was it now? A cover of something, sure, but what? He rolled his window down and listened. Miley Cyrus. “The Climb.”

“That part,” Adam said, snorting.

Suddenly, Adam felt in his pockets. Oh no. He forgot his phone back in his locker. Back in that fuck factory; that chlorinated mausoleum where he’d come to cum and left feeling worse than before. Just like he did every time.

Adam turned to open the driver’s door and make his long trek back to the locker room. He wasn’t exactly surprised to see Jared standing there when he opened the door, and somehow, when Jared overpowered Adam, wrapped his hands around his neck and started choking him and muttering horrific — things he couldn’t make out, like an incantation, a prayer — Adam wasn’t surprised either. What did surprise him, though, was when he started to cum. Right then, right there, as his vision turned green like it did when he fainted. He tried to fight Jared off a little, but went slack as his orgasm started; his body twitching, convulsing.

There was shouting nearby — one or two other people in the garage saw Jared strangling Adam in his car and ran over to help. He heard their shoes scuff as they approached. He heard Jared crying and screaming. He heard the spa music and started to smile.

Many employees quit when news of this breakthrough AI program hit the trades. They tried to unionize and go on strike. The ones who stayed iced out Robby when they’d see him in the hallways or in the lobby. He thought about working from home in the beginning to avoid conflict. Part of the reason he took the job was to be able to go to the office every day and use the amenities. There was even a lap pool. He wouldn’t let people being worried about artistic integrity or water depletion stop him from enjoying what he earned. He’d been in the trenches for years.

His previous job, working remotely in HR for a tech company based in San Francisco, was the loneliest time of his life. He only saw his teammates every few months when he’d head up to the Bay Area to work for a week. Sometimes he’d go out to dinner or a wine bar with a coworker. There weren’t many gays in the company.

Sometimes he’d take an Uber from Palo Alto into San Francisco and go to the Castro and drink Vodka sodas until a group of gays would circle him, invite him into their world for a night. Usually, they were tech gays, too. Ultimate frisbee gays. Dodgeball gays. They hung out in Mission Dolores park on Spring and Summer Saturdays; one or two of them would have a secret X account where they’d post videos of themselves getting plowed in their austere apartments. Robby liked austere. He liked the drone of central air. He was making more money at this job than he’d ever made in his entire life.

He’d been able to redo his condo that he moved into after he and his most recent ex, a slightly autistic ophthalmologist, broke up. The condo was in one of the many newly constructed apartment buildings the streamer built to house employees. It was a seven minute walk from the streamer’s office — that was nearly four city blocks long — in the heart of Hollywood. The apartment made him feel like he was in college; like he was living in a WeWork. But Robby made the most of it. He brightened it up. Everything CB2, everything Wayfair. He loved having friends over for dinner in his newly furnished home; dinner he ordered from a vegan restaurant even though he wasn’t vegan. He didn’t flat out lie when his friend Anders asked if he’d cooked the food himself, he just didn’t say no. Everyone was impressed. But he hadn’t had friends over or gone out to dinner for months. He was in his late 30s, but he still had a good hairline and a decent body. He was in some kind of prime. But mostly, he just wanted to stay home and do nothing. Robby loved being home, at least. He’d sit out on his balcony at night and listen to music, which then turned into listening to nothing, except the sounds of sporadic sirens and the constant whir of delivery drones.

He didn’t have a pet, but he planned to get a Golden Doodle in the new year. He was single, but that was fine. He had a Raya account he never used. He hadn’t even fucked once this year, but that was fine, too. He wasn’t particularly horny anymore, which was probably because of the SSRIs and Finasteride he was on. He figured it was a slow race to see which pill would make him not cum first. It didn’t matter, though. He didn’t need sex. He had a nice coffee table and three gigantic Rizzoli books about Los Angeles and New York.

He did want some fun to celebrate his one year at the streamer. Maybe karaoke in Koreatown. Or somewhere in WeHo, close to the bars in Boystown on Santa Monica Boulevard, where they could make their way to after. So many of the bars had closed in the last year, but there were still some standing. Robby could see a world where he’d find a guy to go home with, once everyone on his team was sufficiently blackout and he wouldn’t feel judged for acting like a drunk slut.

There were eight people on his work team: Robby, Kelly, Alex —a burly man in his early 40s who said he lived on the East Side, but Robby was convinced lived in Colorado. There was Becca, a recent graduate of UCLA who was the only other person who came to the office. The rest were local: Alyssa, Soham, Emmanuelle and Garrett. All of them marinating in the goo of Hollywood slop. Robby was the closest to Kelly. She was a lesbian in her late 30s with a longtime girlfriend and a pit bull; they lived in Mount Washington and biked along the LA River on weekends. Robby got dinner with them once downtown at a restaurant famous for boiled chicken.

Robby considered sending a message to the team to see if people had free time that night, which thankfully landed on a Thursday. The team could work from home on Fridays. Technically, the team could work from home every day, but Robby chose to go in each day of the work week. He decided to see if Kelly was down first. People seemed to like her better. If she was game, it was more likely everyone else would be. Lately, though, Kelly seemed hard to reach. Normally chummy, she’d become fairly disinterested in maintaining a friendship with Robby. Most noticeably, she seemed disinterested in the work they were doing, even resentful of it.

That was almost more puzzling to Robby than her pulling away from him. Their job was groundbreaking. Historic, even. They get paid almost $200K a year to sit and watch AI’s pitch on, toss out, then lock in on an idea for a movie or TV series. Then they’d write the script, cast it, make it, then release it on the streamer for hundreds of millions of people around the world to watch, sometimes mere days after its initial inception. And the best part? Robby, Kelly, Becca, Alex and the rest of the team got final say in what is released. They get to decide what up to half a billion people are going to watch. Sometimes they’d approve up to five movies in a single week. How could you not love that? Robby felt power. He felt like a purveyor of culture, of the zeitgeist.

The actors were almost entirely digital now; many human actors broke off to establish their own production companies, independent of the streamers, putting out movies. The movies were made for cheap, filmed on iPhones or filmed illegally in public. There was a lot of excitement; a punk rock sense of camaraderie between the actors, writers, directors, producers. It was hard to get theatrical runs. Many of the movies were released on YouTube or other outlets. Some of the big actors – the titans – retired early, moving to the country or to Europe.

Los Angeles has become emptier in recent months. People were leaving, moving out, including some of Robby’s friends; No one could afford anything anymore. Even the streamer’s office was only half full; so was the building Robby lived in. He rarely even saw his neighbors on his floor. Sometimes when he was opening his front door, he’d wait to listen in the hallway for the din of music, a TV playing, a conversation on speaker phone. Every time, there was nothing. Just wind.

Robby scanned through his recent chat with Kelly. Most of it work-related, which made Robby sad. Was he boring? Maybe a little. But he was a good work friend at least, especially a good gay work friend. He shared just the right amount of funny TikToks and gifs of Jennifer Coolidge. He drafted his first, non-streamer related convo in Kelly in almost two weeks.

Hi! I was thinking of doing a little drinks thing to celebrate my one year next Thursday. You down?

He waited for Kelly to reply, watching two of the AI agents debate over a mad cow disease subplot on a new medical procedural they were generating.

Not sure I can that night, Kelly wrote back.

Robby swallowed his hurt. He felt like this was confirmation Kelly was distancing herself from him. What had he done, though? He was a good coworker. Sure, he might be a little dull, but he was kind to everyone, enthusiastic when he had to be, and sent Jennifer Coolidge gifs once in a while. What was her problem with him?

That’s fine! Robby wrote back.

He scrunched his nose, smelling something bitter, then looked over at Becca at her desk nearby. She was painting her nails with her headphones on, watching a YouTube of what looked like someone recapping the entire plot of Titanic, scene by scene, with accompanying screenshots. Becca whipped her gaze over to Robby, like she was startled, then smiled sheepishly; she minimized the YouTube and deftly hid her nail polish, opening the screen of the AI’s she was meant to be monitoring, staring intensely.

Robby staved off a smirk, and looked back at his chat with Kelly.

Is everything OK? Robby typed.

He watched the ellipsis rise and fall, undulating softly like waves on a lakeshore. Finally:

Can I call you? Kelly wrote.

Robby widened his eyes. Alert now. There was a pit in his stomach. This was it. He had done something wrong. He’d been annoying or too much of a marm. He’d alienated his only friend here. Kelly was leaving and he’d be left alone with Becca and Alex and the rest of the team.

Sure! Robby wrote back.

Immediately, Kelly was FaceTiming him. He nearly shrieked when the notification came in over his headphones. He stood up and rushed past Becca, who he could tell was following him with her eyes. He found a sound proof phone booth and slipped inside. Robby took a breath and answered.

“Hey, girl!” He said.

Kelly was on the back deck of her house, hunched over in a chair with the top of her dog’s head just off screen. He recognized it, even though he never went to her place in person. She’d FaceTimed him from there a bunch. She was steaming a cigarette. She looked white as a sheet.

“Hey,” she said, exhaling smoke.

“What’s up?” Robby asked, bracing.

“Is anyone else in the office?” She asked.

“Becca’s here,” Robby said.

He flicked his head over and saw Becca stealing a glance at him, before turning away.

“I’m…,” Kelly stopped herself.

Robby waited, increasingly impatient.

“I’m quitting today,” she said.

Robby always gasped, not out of shock, but incredulity.

“Why?” He asked.

“It doesn’t feel real,” she said after pausing.

“What doesn’t?” Robby asked.

“This job,” Kelly said.

Robby chortled. A reflex of discomfort. He thought about asking her if she was annoyed with him as a coworker but decided against it.

“I don’t understand,” he said.

“It’s not healthy,” Kelly said. “We just sit there and watch fake things get made by fake things.”

“That’s the business,” Robby said. “It’s always been like this!”

“No,” Kelly said.

Robby was mad now.

He came into the industry after the AI boom, yes, but he was fairly certain he knew a thing or two by now.

“Yes,” Robby said.

“I majored in playwriting at Yale,” Kelly said.

Robby barely tried to hide his eye roll.

“That’s amazing,” he said.

“No,” Kelly said, like she was waving her arms. “I just mean, I’m watching these things create this absolute slop and doing nothing myself. I’m wasting my life.”

“You are doing a lot!” Robby said.

He could hear himself shouting.

“We get to approve everything the world is watching,” he said. “How cool is that?”

Kelly stared at him, first alarmed, then with sympathy.

“Do you still believe that?” She asked.

Robby turned his head to the window, like he was looking for someone floating outside that he could ask Can you believe this gal?

“What are you trying to say?” He asked.

“Haven’t you looked at the home page recently?” She asked.

Robby shook his head without shaking his head.

“The new releases?” She asked.

Robby couldn’t even believe what she was asking; he also couldn’t believe that he hadn’t looked at the home page recently. Not in the last six months. What had he been doing all this time? HIIT class at Equinox, sure. Taking Peptides. But gradually, he stopped working out. He started eating less, save for Doordashing dinner and Starbucks. He had his laundry sent out and then delivered fresh. He didn’t go out to shop in person anymore; he bought his clothes and shoes from China while on the toilet or in bed. He watched TikToks of people pranking their children. Instagram reels of Christian bodybuilders and crossdressers in a Las Vegas Dillard’s or a woman claiming to be engaged in decades-long psychic warfare with Sandra Bullock. When he did go out, he took Waymo. Most people took Waymos.

He sold his car earlier in the year. He didn’t feel a need for it anymore. It was bad for the environment. Plus, he was tired of driving. He was tired of traffic caused by people looking at their phones while driving. He was tired of pretending he didn’t look at his phone while driving. It was good to exercise. He could walk to work now. That was his exercise. It was a lot to juggle. Watching movies or TV –even the ones he was part of —felt like a big todo. Regardless, his team was responsible for nearly 1 billion views in the last two months. The steamer was thrilled. Things were going great. Whatever Robby was doing or not doing, it was worth it.

“No,” Robby said. “I haven’t.”

“They’re releasing everything, even the things we didn’t approve of,” Kelly said.

Kelly waited for Robby to reply, which took at least thirty seconds.

“Robby?” Kelly asked.

“Yeah,” Robby said.

“Did you hear me?” Kelly asked.

“Yeah,” Robby said.

“They don’t need our approval anymore,” Kelly said.

“Okay,” Robby said.

“Just okay?” Kelly asked.

“Okay,” Robby repeated.

Kelly scratched her eyebrow and shuffled to the side as her girlfriend, half-off screen, made down the steps of the back deck. Robby could hear the girlfriend say something, but couldn’t make it out. Something about the car.

“I have three boxes upstairs that I’ll add,” Kelly said to her, before turning back to Robby.

“We’re leaving tonight,” she said.

“Where are you going?” Robby asked.

“We’re renting this place on Lake Michigan,” Kelly said.

“Michigan?” Robby was horrified.

“We want to be near fresh water,” Kelly said quietly.

Robby’s stomach sank again, but all he could do was laugh.

“All right,” he said.

“You should leave soon,” Kelly said with the most compassion Robby had heard in a long time.

“This isn’t a conversation I want to have right now,” Robby said. “I think there’s been a misunderstanding.”

Kelly nodded. Robby could feel tears welling up, but he looked away and closed his eyes before they could breach.

“Have you told HR?” Robby asked, turning to face Kelly again.

“No,” Kelly said.

“That’s not good,” he said firmly. “You need to tell them.”

“I don’t even think they’ll notice,” she said.

“That’s not fair!” Robby said.

This time, he could see Becca fully watching him, not trying to be subtle. She mouthed “Everything OK?” Robby put his hand up assuringly. Yes.

“You can’t just take money for not doing work,” he said.

“What work?!” Kelly asked.

Robby did some box breaths. He learned that from a hot meditation daddy on Instagram who made sure to include his bare feet in each video.

“I’ll have to tell the team,” he said. “I’m assuming you won’t.”

“See for yourself on the home page,” Kelly said.

“Will do,” Robby said, big and fake.

Kelly leaned back in her chair, nodding, hurt.

“Good luck, Robby,” Kelly said.

“Have fun on the lake,” Robby said, before ending the call.

He sat in the booth for a moment, gathering himself, before stepping outside again. Becca stood up, waiting for him as he approached his desk.

“Was there a shooting?” Becca asked.

“What?” Robby asked.

“I saw something on TikTok,” Becca said.

“Oh,” Robby said, sitting down. “Just a thing with a friend.”

He sat at his desk, pulling up his streamer account on his laptop, clicking into his little “Robby” avatar. A small blue ball with cute eyes. Next to it was “Mom.” His mom. That’s right. She used his account. Of course he wouldn’t let her pay for it. Suddenly, he couldn’t remember his mom’s middle name. When was the last time he even spoke to her? His dad? His brother or sister? He couldn’t think.

“I saw a video of a mountain lion eating a little kid at a mall in the Valley,” Becca said.

Robby thought Becca sounded like she was underwater. He clicked onto the home page, scrolling down to New Releases.

“But then people were saying it was a fake video,” Becca continued. “I still can’t tell.”

Robby looked through new movies and let out something between a gasp and a yelp. Every movie, even the ones they hadn’t approved, were there. Endless, endless rows of movies. The same with TV shows. All of it there. Nothing spared. Nothing disputed. He was certain of the ones they didn’t approve. He knew the high ups had agreed with them. The AI’s understood the order. Still, they all were.

“Have you ever been to The Butcher’s Daughter?” Becca asked.

Robby was now crying, his mouth open and gurgling. He shook his head.

“I really want to go there,” Becca said. “A third one just opened in Los Feliz.”

Robby pulled up the chat to the team. Becca, Alex, Alyssa, Soham, Emmanuelle, Garrett and Kelly. He hovered his index fingers over the keyboard, deciding whether to tell them about Kelly, to tell them about the AI’s. He realized he’d never even chatted with Alyssa, Soham, Emmanuelle or Garrett before. They’d never even chimed in to the group chat. He couldn’t remember when they were hired. Had they always been just there? Were they even real at all? Robby was the first person on the team. How did he even find this job? A recruiter dropped it into his email. That’s right. They mentioned something about a skeleton crew. Robby scoured through his email for the recruiter’s address but couldn’t find it. Skeleton crew. Skeleton crew for what?

“Have you ever been to Bacari?” Becca asked.

Robby shook his head again.

“It’s my favorite,” Becca said, almost to herself this time. “I really want to go there for my birthday.”

Robby nodded, then looked out at the street 10 floors below with no people on it. No cars. This city is emptying more and more by the day. Where was everyone? Where would he go if he decided to leave, too? He thought about Kelly, her girlfriend and their pit bull, driving east into the night, going East and North, towards fresh water. If he left now, he could catch up to them. Then he remembered he didn’t have a car. He’d given that up like most other things. That would prove to be a mistake for Robby. Especially on the day, not too long from now, when he would be forced out of the city and into the desert on foot, along with everyone else.

For now, though, there was grace in giving up, in relinquishing control. Robby was allowed to be proud of his work. He was allowed to feel peace.

“Good” I said.

“Did you see Paris Hilton?” He asked.

I told him I did. That was the truth. I had seen Paris across the theater —an attendant held a giant ring light in front of her while guests swarmed. She looked stunning and young. So young. The oldest teenager in the world.

But then everyone looked young. Everyone except me. The Oldest Gay Alive. They didn’t allow drinks in the theater; understandable but deeply annoying. Everyone looked thirsty. It’s been scarily dry in LA the last few days; preceded by nights and mornings of dense fog. The stillest air. Air that feels that sitting in old bathwater. There have been air quality alerts in LA all week. Good thing I smoke cigarettes. Deadfall and piles of fronds from a surprise, hot wind storm the other night littered sidewalks and streets yesterday. I hold my breath when there are Santa Anas now. I look for the mushroom cloud in the horizon like I saw this past January. I look for the fire that’s not tucked away in the mountains, but creeping into our streets.

I sat with a chic Argentinian DJ whose boyfriend was a dancer in the opening number; he and several other handsome, muscular men flanked a person who looked like a child but could have also been a 40-year-old man. Before the show started, I had a coughing fit. “It’s so dry” I said to my new South American friend. I got a mailbox sized cup of water at the bar and took it to a stall in the gender neutral restroom and chugged it. I had used this same restroom twice in the previous hour. I was decidedly gender-free last night. In general I drink water constantly and then pee constantly. Then I wonder why I am constantly peeing and worry that I have cancer. I drank the water and scrolled through my phone, waiting to see news that our president officially declared war on Venezuela for some reason. He did not. Instead, he praised himself at his desk and breathed heavily. Maybe the air quality is bad in Washington, too.

I left an hour into the ceremony. Congrats to all the winners; congrats to all the nominees. The guy in a suit waiting outside the venue told me that despite not being invited, he had a thriving TikTok account. He showed me proof. It did look thriving. He asked if he could use my wristband to get in.

“Since you’re leaving early,” he said.

I almost gave him it but then had an intrusive and probably unfair thought of him doing something inside. Considering the last week alone, who can blame me. I told him I was a rule follower and couldn’t do that. He understood. Then he asked me if I was also a creator. I told him I wasn’t.

Later when I got into the Waymo that smelled like weed, I saw him walking with another guest wearing a full gown, talking her ear off. She was laughing. I wondered if she’d agreed to wristband swap with him. How magnanimous of her. I suddenly felt guilty. Stingy. I was a Gatekeeper. Ball Gown Lady was a true comrade and I was a coward in a Waymo. I was a good little App Pig. I was protecting the state.

The TikTok awards show felt like the Last Awards show, but to be fair, every awards show feels like that now. It made it vital and precious; even watching winners walking up to the stage holding their phone out with a selfie stick, not looking out at the audience felt beautiful to me. Gorgeous, even. AI could never.

The Oscars broadcast is officially switching from ABC to YouTube in 2029. A seemingly jarring but completely expected transition. The only bold thing about that plan is assuming we will even have a country in five years. I’m being too defeatist. We probably will. I just have no idea what it will look like. But why would I want to know? I’m trying not to speculate in 2026; I’m trying not to look ahead. Everyone keeps saying it will be bad, but if I don’t try to imagine it, I can neither confirm nor deny.

Mid-December is an assault of content. The Great Pacific Garbage Patch of year-end lists and predictions. Ins and Outs. A time-honored tradition of scrambling to meet a quota. The mass churning. Factory farm vibes. In this spirit, I am sending my invoice now.

In and Out for 2026.

IN

1. Not complaining about where you live.

2. Not complaining about LA.

3. I live in LA.

4. Why do I spend so much time complaining about LA?

5. Is it because it gives me something to write about?

6. Writing about LA is not original.

7. Congratulations, I have depression.

8. What am I trying to do with my LA complaints?

9. I am bringing them to Los Angeles HR.

10. I forgot Los Angeles doesn’t have HR.

11. Los Angeles is pretty.

12. Los Angeles has brought me a lot of good things.

13. It brought me my husband.

14. I love my husband.

15. He is a miracle to me.

16. He doesn’t always love LA.

17. We’ve spent a lot time this year talking about moving to New York.

18. We can’t afford to live in New York right now.

19. My husband has made an effort to accept LA over the last few months; see the good in it.

20. He’s happier.

21. It’s noticeable.

22. I could learn to accept more things at the age of 36.

23. It’s not resigning or giving in to something.

24. It’s being an adult.

25. I am still childish in many ways.

26. I might be a stupid little bitch.

27. Whatever.

28. I love my dog.

29. I got my dog in LA.

30. Why am I so fixated on New York?

31. I don’t live in New York and haven’t lived there in 8 years.

32. I’ve lived in LA longer than I lived in New York.

33. I am probably not going to live in New York again, at least for longer than a few months at a time if I am lucky.

34. Why I am still so fixated on New York? Despite the obvious.

35. I am from NJ. Which is not NY. But I associate New York with the East Coast.

36. I miss the East Coast.

37. When we get older, we feel pulled to where we are from.

38. I got sober in New York.

39. I was a slut in New York.

40. I was blackout in New York.

41. I let my dealer call me “Corey” instead of Carey in New York, because I thought if I corrected him he wouldn’t bring me drugs.

42. I had a good relationship with my drug dealer in New York.

43. I miss him sometimes.

44. I remember how his car smelled.

45. Always clean. Always nice.

46. I woke up on the floor of an apartment across the street from mine in New York, not knowing how I got in there.

47. I pissed my bed three nights a week in New York.

48. I projectile vomited in a cab in broad daylight while rolling on MDMA in New York.

49. I watched my parents clean my disgusting bedroom in New York while I couldn’t sit up because I was so strung out.

50. I was dying in New York.

51. I miss dying in New York, not because I want to die, but because I was young.

52. I am not young now.

53. If I hold onto New York, I can’t get older.

54. I am afraid of death.

55. I shouldn’t be.

56. I see more death on my phone by 11 am PST than the average person at the beginning of the 20th century saw in a single year.

57. I have no way of knowing if that statement has any merit.

58. I’m making a point.

59. People had it bad back then, of course.

60. Sorry to those people.

61. There was poop everywhere.

62. We aren’t meant to see as much as we see.

63. I had it bad in New York, too.

64. But it didn’t matter because I loved it.

65. Then I left.

66. New York doesn’t care when you leave.

67. That’s sad but it’s also beautiful.

68. LA doesn’t care when you’re in it.

69. I guess that’s kind of beautiful, too.

70. You have to make it care about you.

71. Maybe I write so much about LA because I want its attention.

72. I want it to love me.

73. I am a black hole sometimes.

74. Give me your love.

75. Uncovering an ancient relic and unleashing a curse on yourself and your loved ones.

76. Devoting an inordinate amount of time to discovering how to defeat this curse.

77. Defeating this curse.

78. JoJo Siwa being a lesbian again.

OUT

1. Tattle-tales.

2. Wildfire.

3. Sam Altman.

4. Evil gays.

5. Mergers.

For years, the Big One was set to destroy LA and liquify the rolling hills and canyons and swallow the city once and for all. But in the last decade, it was settled that the Big One has its hungry hole set on the Pacific Northwest. The Cascadia Subduction Zone, a nearly 1,000-mile fault line where the Juan de Fuca plate scissors with the Noth America Plate. When (and they love to say WHEN not IF) the plates slip, tired of doing whatever it is that plates do, an unfathomable earthquake up to 9.0 on the Richter Scale will follow. Of course, after that, a tsunami as high as 40 feet will lay waste to the coasts of Washington and Oregon — potentially as far inland as 10 miles. Portland and Seattle — the great enemies of the current White House and its Paul Blart Gestapo — will be severely damaged.

In the spirit of making it about me, I will be bummed when this happens. I love Seattle and I’ve only been to Portland once, which was admittedly not the best time to be there. It was winter and raining and the city was still inching out of the pandemic’s restrictive shadow. I also stayed at a Marriott downtown, which made me want to kill myself. But that’s on me. Still, I saw the vision of Portland. Its promise. I wasn’t gay there, I was queer. I’d love to visit again before it gets washed away.

This plate slip will be so tremendous, it will probably trigger other faults along the West Coast, like the San Andreas. Our beloved fault. Once revered for its megawatt star power. But now we see it what for it really. Second Best. An aftershock. Our The Big One will be The Not As Big One. I can’t say I’m not disappointed. Of course, there’s a still a 70% chance of an earthquake that’s 6.7 or bigger in LA by 2030.. The Big One, though; that was ours. The great promise of Los Angeles was to die in the Big One. Or to at least go missing for a few days and write a spec script about surviving it that you eventually sell to Hulu where it won’t get made.

We’re first in some ways: being invisible. Isolation. Smoothies. Daylight horror. DaddyGangs. Wildfires. Trial runs for military occupation. But everyone else moves on after a week or so. We don’t get the attention we want. LA is old, but still not as old as New York, Chicago, even San Francisco, by only a few years. We are the middle child. Awkwardly big and beautiful but taken for granted. Slutty. We are slutty in the wrong way; too vast and complicated to have self-respect. But I love this slutty city. This gorgeous, sad hoe of a town. It’s taken me a while to understand it, just like it’s taken me awhile to understand that I am naturally not a grateful person. Gratitude is learned, not inherent. A hard truth to swallow. I don’t feel it’s because I am a brat, but because at my core, I don’t have faith that anything I have will stay. A lack of gratitude is a defense mechanism. I am a garden variety alcoholic. But I have learned to be grateful. I have a lot to be grateful for. Learning how to be something is better than never being it at all. It doesn’t feel fraudulent.

LA is fraudulent. It is a city of lies and exaggerations and hypotheticals. The most American place in history. LA is hemorrhaging, too. By the day — maybe the hour. People are leaving, fleeing East. Back to New York, where they left in the 2010s. Hollywood is leaving, too. You can’t really say Hollywood is in LA anymore. It’s Albuquerque and Atlanta, New Jersey. Canada, our mainstay home away from home, now slowly raising the partition on us as the Trade War continues its confounding disintegration of American dignity. Justin Trudeau and Katy Perry are dating now. Isn’t that fun? And so random? You can’t really even process this news. You just hear it and think ‘Oh!’ I guess one day, when we’re in a bunker somewhere, riding out nuclear winter or climate change — which is now being explained by geoengineering, according to Florida — I’ll have to sit my sister’s children down and explain to them that at one point, in 2025, popstar Katy Perry was dating former Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau; the same year she went to space with Gayle King and Lauren Sanchez.

“Who is Lauren Sanchez?” They’ll ask me.

“Lauren Sanchez-Bezos,” I’ll reply.

“Oh!” They’ll say, confused.

“Alive Girl,” I’ll add. “A close friend of Jessica Seinfeld’s.”

“Got it,” they’ll say, nodding in total and complete recognition.

Then I’ll smile, knowing my work here is done; I will start playing for them on Edelweiss on the acoustic guitar I made out of bones.

The end isn’t nigh. It’s random. The way the world ends is not with a bang, but with a “Oh! Ok.” Every minute of every day, LA is being hollowed out by mergers, looming AI. How long before the Hollywood sign is changed to “Tilly Norwood”? Or Paramount Plus.

I will start listening to The Town. I’ve lied and said I have before to sound in the know. A part of. As a writer with an IMBD whose last credit is 3-years-old experience. In LA, you are self-trained to lie when someone asks if you’ve seen a show or heard a podcast. And that is what binds us together. New York has the subway, and Democratic Socialism. LA has lying. Meghan Markle is acting again. And Pope Leo is wooing Hollywood! Pope Leo should act, too. He should guest star in The Bear. Isn’t he from Chicago? I’m grateful for Pope Leo’s American ass.

Can you even believe this gratitude? I am positively drowning in it. I should be canonized. The other day, I cried so hard my eyes were red for two hours. I laid in bed when I got home and watched the sunset and looked for the Northern Lights. A geomagnetic storm triggered a rare borealis could be seen in North America this week, as far South as Florida on Tuesday and Wednesday. Not in LA, though. I read that solar storms can help trigger earthquakes. Life’s rejection is God’s protection. I’m grateful Myrtle Beach got to see the Aurora Borealis. I love Myrtle Beach. I got the flu there once in college.

Hell, I’m even grateful for All’s Fair! Let Kim Kardashian act! I believe in her. She failed the bar again this week. Then she blamed the psychics who told her she would pass. She posted a video of herself on TikTok, calling out these soothsayers.

“I’m just letting you guys know, that all of the fucking psychics that we met with, and that we’re obsessed with, are all fucking full of shit.”

I wish I could go back in time to my senior year of high school and make this my yearbook quote. I’ve been thinking about who the “We” is that Kim is addressing. I assume her sisters and her mother; imperially wealthy women love turning to mystics. Or maybe the We Is Kim. Or it’s us. She is now We. We are her.

I believe her when she says psychics are full of shit. It’s like when Björk said to “You shouldn’t let poets lie to you.”

I trust Björk. And I trust Kim Kardashian. I trust her more than I trust any politician. I worry about Kim passing the bar a lot. It stresses me out. I hate when people make fun of her every time she fails. Not only is the California bar exam the most extraordinarily hard bar exam in the country, it’s the most competitive. Do you people realize that?! Take that information in before you decide to make fun of Kim Kardashian for failing time and time and time again. Fuck you! It took JFK Jr. three times to pass the bar, and that was just New York. I’m grateful there’s a show about him coming out soon, too. Kim Kardashian should play Jackie O and also JFK Jr.

It would be easy for me to say that at the start of this all, I despaired at this notion of isolation; plainness as survival. But the truth is I don’t really remember the beginning. The truth about immortality is that the human brain refuses longevity. It cannot conceive of being endless. It is designed to die. It can’t store decades or centuries. After a certain point, it deletes. Not to protect you, but because there is no more room.

And I’m not saying I’ve been like this for centuries. I can’t know that for sure. I can’t remember my life before, but I do see flashes of my death. I know I was disposed on the bank of a river by someone like me. Someone who cased me and drank me and left me somewhere foul and humid. I can hear the flies buzzing and water trickling when I think about it. I see myself from above myself — my neck torn open, my face bloated and skin yellow; my eyes without any color. I can picture it perfectly. I am looking at myself like I am strapped to an invisible gurney and turned upside down. There is no going any higher than that because there is nothing else higher. Just space and silence.

I don’t blame whoever made me this way. They needed to survive. I just blame them for not finishing the job. Sometimes when I am lonely I like to think they turned me intentionally. They wanted a friend or someone to love, but then panicked and left me there. When you have been around as long as I have, though, you realize that things like that are unlikely. Whoever this person was, they left me by accident. Sometimes when you drink someone, if you are not careful, you forget logic. You see dead gods and heavens and whole other worlds that aren’t there and forget that you have a task. You have to drink a person completely. If you don’t, they will resurrect and then there will be less food in the world for you. I have only encountered a few others like me, very briefly. I’m not sure how many of us are even left. We avoid each other. Or we forget.

I’ve never forgotten the river and the flies, though. I remember that but not much else.

I remember more when I am in New York. I’m not sure why. I don’t think it’s because I was made there or lived there in my life before. I think it’s because I don’t have to think. New York is so loud and churning and rancid. My memories come back because I am not trying to remember. I am distracted. There is space in my deleted brain and memories see their chance to slip back in.

I love the city. New York feels like a good place to turn into nothing. Whatever way I can die —and I don’t even know what that would look like — I want it to happen in New York. That sounds worse than I mean. I should rephrase that: New York would be a fine place to be swallowed by. It is a giant, comforting mouth. I could be digested in its belly for a millennium and never be bored. I don’t want to be recycled. I want to be in New York.

***

I’d been living in Alaska for a decade, in the North Slope Borough. When I want to sleep more than be awake, I always go somewhere icy. Somewhere darker. The air slows me down. A day stretches for a week. Walking suspended animation. I don’t need to eat as much where it’s cold; it curbs my hunger. I can go almost a month between feedings. Not like there was much to eat, anyway. I’d wait for people passing through — oil rig workers, soldiers, runaways — I’d find them at the bar seven miles from where I slept and watch them get drunk and follow them outside where they were pissing or throwing up and kill them there. I’d drag them out of the flood light, into a dark bank of snow off the main road through town and eat them there. Then I’d pull them out onto the ice, take their wallet, and drop them down into the blackness. Sometimes police would come; the army reserves. They’d ask questions, investigate. There would be rumors, maybe, but never for long. No one ever thought of me. No one knew I was there.

Once in a while, someone would raise their hand and wave at me in vague recognition — a longtime resident in town, walking out of the pharmacy, or pizza place. I’d wave back and smile. But no one ever talked to me. I don’t think I said more than thirty words in the ten years I was there. It may have been longer than ten years; I can’t remember. But ten years feels right. In the dark months I rotated homes. Abandoned houses, a warehouse. And in the spring and summer I’d sleep through the midnight sun. I waited till the fall came and crawled out of the night once more.

The flu tore the Borough in the fall of 2025. I waited for the ambulance sirens to fade off while I slept but they never did. They wailed for a month straight. I saw bodies being retrieved from homes in bags. My neighbors. The people I watched for years; who grew up and left or stayed. Some I’d seen since they were children, then having children of their own. I watched their children die, too. The people who didn’t get sick left, taking their chances away from here. The town shuttered through the winter. I had to be smart with food. I paced myself. I couldn’t rely on passersby. No one was allowed into the town except medical personnel. They were all closely tracked and accounted for. They had people looking out for them, expecting them. They were not feasible. I had to wait for those dying in their beds at home, quarantined on order from the state. Their doors were marked with a single red slash. Infected. Nothing to be done. I made sure to be neat when I drank them. I wasn’t sloppy. I wanted to be respectful. I knew they were burying the dead outside of town. After I was finished I would add another slash on their front door. I’d bring their corpses to the burial site during quiet hours and dump them. No one ever noticed.

A few of the dying people, in their scalding fever haze, watched me appear above them and cried out in joy. A woman in her 60s, who I’d seen many times before shoveling snow or welding in her garage at home, clasped my hand in hers and asked if I was an angel. I told her I was.

“I’m here to take you away,” I said.

“Thank God,” she said.

One night I came across a small dog named Bruce in the middle of the empty street. He had a collar on with a phone number on a small brass tag. I figured he’d wandered out of a house nearby, looking for food after his owners died. He was shivering and thin. He followed me for half a mile before I realized I wouldn’t be able to lose him, so I broke into an empty house that hadn’t had its power cut yet. There was meat in the freezer and I cooked some for Bruce and watched him eat. He devoured gratefully and afterward lapped up freezing water from the faucet. I sat down on the couch and he jumped up on my lap, facing out towards the back door that rattled in the pre-dawn wind. His ears lowered with every new gust. I decided to sleep there when I could feel the brief burst of morning light coming. I duct-taped a blanket over the small window in the bathroom and slept in the tub with Bruce in my arms. I dreamt for the first time in years.

When I woke up that night, I took Bruce out to go to the bathroom. I carried him across the front lawn and placed him on the ground where the snow was thin. As soon as I did, he took off into the street. I ran after him for a block before I realized I might be noticed, so I stopped. I watched him disappear into the dark ahead. I spent the rest of the night looking for him but he was nowhere. He was gone.

There was a week where there was another one like me in the area. I never saw them but I could feel them. I almost forgot I wasn’t the only one in the world like me until that familiar ringing noise started again and I remembered. They must have come because wherever they had been was now dead and there wasn’t any food. They smelled my desperation. My longing to stay in this place and not raise suspicion. They smelled my tidiness. My meekness, living in the shadows, careful and nervous. I’m sure it delighted them. I wasn’t a threat and we both knew that. I hated them. I let them search, scavenge. And when they were gone, the ringing stopped. I decided that if they came back, I wouldn’t hide. I would find them and destroy them.

***

The flu burned out and the new people filled up town again. The plague had plunged the nation into a depression. No one had money, which meant more seasonal workers, which meant people more to kill. My food was steady. My shelter was not. Land was being fought over by desperate corporations. Homes of the dead had been razed and in their places cheap, institutional ranchers. An entire new subdivision. A company town. I was running out of places to hide. I knew my time there was ending. I longed for New York and the hum. I decided I would hitch my way across the country. I hadn’t done that since I was younger. Flying wasn’t an option, especially now, with a recall on IDs and passports after the president began his third term in office. The most recent election was nearly called off after a rise in domestic terrorism. After a fourth assassination attempt, he declared a national emergency and threatened to put off the election until order was restored. But still, voting happened, and still, he won. There were riots. Bombings. Not that I cared. I’d seen this happened before in other places. It was always the same. An endless loop. I never felt part of this country. I felt like a neighbor in a nearby world. I was there but not in the same place. I didn’t live. I bided time.

But my problem was my driver’s license. It was fake of course, but it had expired in the early 2000s, after 9/11 or something. I didn’t want to bother getting a new one. It was too dangerous. Driving was the best option, but I couldn’t drive myself. I never learned. I needed help. I needed cover. I’d seen news reports on TVs in town about checkpoints at every state line following the election; ICE ramping up arrests and deportations of those with invalid ID. I’d find a way, though. I always did.

Over a period of three months, I auditioned drug addicts at the bar in town who I knew had cars. Most were on heroin or fentanyl. I couldn’t rely on dope heads. I zeroed in on the few tweakers who rolled through. Tweakers love road trips and hate sunlight. It was perfect. Only one committed. The rest I killed.

My companion was a gay man in his 40s named Lev with blue eyes, bad breath, and a Ford Fusion. He’d lived in Phoenix until a bar he worked at was raided by police, allegedly for an issue with its liquor license. Up until then, he’d heard rumors of disappearances. Arrests. He didn’t want to take his chance. He’d been sober for 12 years but decided to relapse and do meth in Alaska till things sorted itself out, whenever that would be. He left in the middle of the night and drove up from Arizona before the election. I was able to convince him that what he actually needed to do was a cross country binge before drying out in New York. I’d do some meth with him when I could.

“New York has good AA,” I said, remembering my stint of picking up people to eat at meetings.

I told him it’d be safer for gays in New York. It always was. I’d be gay again. I’d done it before. We decided to leave the next evening. We went back to the motel he was crashing in with tin foil in the windows to party once more before hitting the road. He burned through another pipe and I sucked his limp dick until he stopped trying to get hard. He started drinking beer and ripping cigarettes while listening to unremarkable music on his iPhone, placed into an empty water glass. I excused myself to the bathroom and locked the door. It was getting hard for me not to feel his hopped up heart thudding in my bones or hear the deafening sound of his blood surging through his veins. If I ate him now, I’d be stuck here for another winter. I would starve. I needed to wait till he got me to New York. I could kill them then. Or maybe I’d drop him off in front of a convent in a basket with a note that says, “God forgive me.”

I had to be zen. I rolled my head up in the dirty bathroom rug and tried to blot out the noise of his buzzing body. Eventually I slept. I dreamt of Bruce. He was sprinting ahead of me in the darkness like the night I lost him. I tried calling out after him but I couldn’t speak. I chased after him onto the ice until he disappeared and I knelt down and started to cry.

Then I dreamt of New York. I’d be there soon.

***

Entering Canada was more stressful than I imagined, which was stupid of me. I usually expect the worst, and this time, for whatever reason –maybe Lev’s unearned optimism at the prospect of getting sober again, in between pulls from the meth pipe as he drove us through Alaska. It was nearly December, and warm. The weather had gotten warmer. There was no denying that. Warmer and stranger. I could prove climate change was real by simply existing. But of course, as we drove south towards the border, the sunlight returned, and Lev dug out a trap compartment in the trunk of his car for me to sleep in during the day. I told him I had a condition.

“Plus, Melanoma runs in my family,” I told him.

He asked no questions, like a tried and true tweaker. No questions. Just talking; telling me things. When we would stop at a motel at night, and I’d wait for him to crash out so I could go kill someone who worked at the motel or a runaway at a bar or gas station nearby, he would tell me about his family. How his mother died when he was a teenager and his three older brothers were cruel to him. His father was a drunk but a kind one, at least. Never mean, just sloppy. Town drunk sloppy. Only once did he ask me about my family. I told him how I didn’t really remember them and that I hadn’t seen them in a long time. He asked me how that was possible and I told him they were simply not iconic enough to remember.

“You seem dramatic,” Lev said.

Just for fun, I asked him how old he thought I was.

“23,” he said, making the bed for the third time that night.“Or maybe 47; I don’t know.”

At this point, his brain was undoubtedly a melted jack-o-lantern from the crystal, but as long as he could drive and be subtle when he had to, he was useful. And he was useful, really. He was resourceful. He used some kind of off-the-radar thing on his phone to chat with other meth heads and dealers in North America, tipping each other off to police presence, new shipments, places to pick up, orgies, etc. One of them happened to be a border patrol officer in Vancouver; Lev sent him money and he promised to wave us through when we got to the checkpoint. Lev also waited till the officer accepted the payment before informing him that if this was all a trap in any way, he would alert ICE about a mole in their midst accepting bribes and drugs from fiendish cocksuckers fleeing the US. I liked the way he worked. The officer told Lev he would be flagged as an asylum seekers, which Canada was accepting as many as they could handle.

The entrance to the border was a zoo. We made our way there at sundown. Since my ID was expired, and I looked how I figured I did, I volunteered to hide in the trunk where I spent my days. Lev told me that was dumb. They had dogs and would take a car apart if they had reason to believe there were people being smuggled. Hiding in plain sight was the best option.

“We have our pig at the border,” Lev reassured me.

Our sweet pig. He would guide us through.

The border was a zoo. We approached at sundown. There were throngs of people in cars and on foot. Families, elderly people, trans women. There were tent cities stretched out for miles on the side of the road; vendors selling flowers and cell phone chargers and fruit and meats. Despite the balmy night, there were people huddled around trash can fires, which almost made me laugh. Like I was watching a stage play. We found the correct line of cars to enter; Lev’s guy was messaging him incessantly, nervously. Lev seemed nervous, too. I watched people being taken out of their cars and patted down by officers; German Shepherds barked and whimpered. Soldiers posted up at the booths ahead –machine guns draped across – watching everything, everyone. One Latino woman and her daughter were separated by several officers; a young girl carried off screaming while her mother tried to lunge for her, calling out to her to “Wait for me, wait for me.” I didn’t know I knew Spanish, but then why wouldn’t I —I’d been around long enough.

Lev’s guy waved us up. I could tell it was him because his face was flushed and his eyes were wide. He had the stirrings of bad skin. His addiction was still new –maybe a year or two old. He had time to hone it in. He asked for our IDs, our passports. Lev took mine, his hand shaking. I put my hand on his leg to calm him. The officer pretended to examine them while another walked up to the car with her dog.

“Fuck,” Lev muttered.

I had no idea how many drugs this car had hidden in the walls, under the floor or in the ceiling. I took a breath and prepared myself to kill everyone around me. If I had to, I would. I could access the hunger I kept at bay. I was always hungry, yes, but this was different. It came from somewhere deep. An unfathomable hunger. Impossible. I kept it at bay with daily feedings. I could go a few days without eating, but if I was hungry enough, it would take me over. It happened once, a long time ago. I can’t remember where or when, but I know it was in public. On a busy street –outside a tavern or hall. A wedding. It was a wedding. I had been starving and unable to find food. I remember the screams. The torn limbs and guts spilled out on cobblestone and my arms and hands drenched in blood and flesh. Men, women, children –all of them gone in an instant. And I felt nothing but utter peace.

“They’re good,” the officer said. “Asylum seekers.”

I opened my eyes and saw him motion to his team member; she looked at him and then at us for a moment. I saw the doubt. She knew, but she didn’t care enough. The dog barked and she pulled it away, walking to the car behind us.

“Thanks, babycakes,” Lev whispered to him.

The officer squinted his eyes and handed Lev the forged certificate that granted us sanctuary. We drove up and through the booth, and we were in Canada.

We camped in a stadium parking lot outside Vancouver where new entries from the US bundled. They weren’t letting anyone leave. Thousands of people. Coughing and music and children playing. The country was scrambling to set up housing for refugees. There were too many at once. A majority of Canadians supported the influx of Americans but a growing number wanted to send us back. Us. I was one of us, I guess. There were protests in province capitals. Refugee camps were attacked. I barely slept during the day. It was too loud. Lev found people to party in his car with. Police guarded the parking lot but didn’t bother to enforce anything inside. I killed a police man who cruised me on a walk one night; a middle aged woman who was dropping clothes off; a 19-year-old goth boy from Oregon and elderly couple from California who came to Canada after the government cut off their social security. The first three I dragged into a river nearby, but I got lazy with the couple. Their bodies were discovered the next afternoon, but by then, Lev and I were half-way through British Columbia, heading east. Lev had networked with the underbelly of the camp during our stint and arranged for us to be given a pass to leave the camp and travel within Canada. Every day, he astonished me.

The rest of our travels went fast, probably because I was beginning to starve. There were wildfires all across Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba. The smoke traveled as far south as Texas. Mandatory evacuations were ordered in cities and towns, some only recently repopulated after the flu. As always, this meant less food for me. We listened to NPR –Lev, despite his cranked up madness–still appreciated the dulcet tones of unbiased news– where we heard stories about mountain stragglers who refused to leave and burned alive in the homes they vowed to protect. Things were getting worse in America, too. Lev wondered if we should just forgo our New York plans. I stayed up one night as we drove down a backroad along the Trans Canadian Highway, the windows down as the warm wind whipped at our faces and carried in the smell of the wildfires, convincing Lev to go through with crossing into the US. As I talked to him, I looked out at an old farmhouse across a field and suddenly remembered I’d seen it before.

I’d traveled across Canada decades ago, with a man I met in Quebec. Montreal. He was from a wealthy family, disinherited after being arrested for soliciting a man in a restroom. He wrote poems. Yes. He was a poet. At least, he said he was. His poetry was bad. But I liked the way his mouth moved when he read them to me. He read them aloud to me as he drove. He wrote poems about his dad. About being in the war. Which war was it? Who cares? He was coming off heroin when we met. He got sick for days. I helped him puke. What was his name? Where were we going? He drew me. He sketched me. He was better at that than poetry. I stared at it while I slept one day. I couldn’t remember the last time I saw what I looked like. It made me cry. He made me cry. He told me he loved me. I told him that was nice. We made it to some city. Some random, drab city. We rented a shitty placeOne day he was pulled over and questioned by highway patrol because he was driving a little too slowly.

“Just trying to be safe,” Lev told the office.

He explained his situation; I could hear the crinkled asylum certificate; he explained that he’d narrowly escaped persecution in Arizona. Not a lie. After a moment, the officer told him to just drive the speed limit, and also told him to be careful out here if he stopped to rest.

“This about that serial killer?” Lev asked.

Yes, the serial killer who was making their way through refugee camps and roadside motels and rest stations. Behind 7-Elevens and cruising spots in the woods. So far in every province of Canada. There were reports about it on the local radio stations. Even the US news. No police sketches. No eye witnesses. Just bodies drained of blood. Impressive, I thought, contorted and scrunched in the trunk. I listened to Lev explain he had asylum status and was just trying to get to Ontario.. He also started explaining to them his theory that the serial killer was possibly a hoax being run by the Canadian government to scare refugees into returning to America. I closed my eyes in the trunk and prayed that an asteroid hit our car and put me out of my misery. Miraculously, they let him go. I began to believe that Lev was touched by God.

He tried opening the trunk one time while I was sleeping off the sun. He told me he wanted me to see the light. By that point, he had guessed I was a vampire, which is never good for anyone, let alone a meth head, to discover about the person they’re traveling with internationally. I assured him I wasn’t going to hurt him. I just needed to get to New York, that’s all.

On our last night together, in a port city on Lake Erie, right across from Pennsylvania. Pennsylvania, the most random state in a country that was barely a country any longer. New York City was its own country. It was never random.

We posted up at a wharf bar filled with lake boat captains and half-assed Christmas decorations. It was humid and there was sporadic rain and thunder. I hadn’t eaten for 36 hours and felt dizzy. Food had been scarce the closer we got to the border. More checkpoints, more people. Less places to hide. I needed to kill someone before we stepped foot in America. I couldn’t arrive in New York in this condition. I needed to be fresh. Lev brought a man over to where I was sitting; he was football player overweight and ruddy faced, but looked young.

“This is Dave,” Lev said to me. “He has a boat.”

Lev raised his eyebrows up and down. Dave explained that border security at the port in Pennsylvania was lighter than others, but the military always came aboard to inspect, even if you’d already made a trip across earlier that day. Lev promised him $1,000 to get us across undetected. Dave stared at me and asked Lev what was wrong with my face. I could only imagine the condition of my face if Lev seemed healthier than me.

“He sick or something?” Dave asked.

“He has a condition, but he’s good,” Lev said.

“I’m not letting no sick queer on my boat,” Dave said.

“He’s not gay,” Lev said. “And neither am I!”

Dave told us that was for the best, that it’d be foolish for queers to want to be in America right now. Then he agreed to Lev’s deal.

“Might as well spend the dollar while it still means anything,” he said.

Lev leaned into my ear.

“I’m gonna blow myself up when we get to New York,” he whispered.

He slowly sat back up, looking at me with a big grin. I decided then he had to die.

Dave told us to meet him at the marina the next night. We left the bar when the storm stopped, and Lev scored more meth through Grindr. He showed me the grid of profiles, and pointed out some less than 50 miles away in America, directly across the lake.

“You can tell which profiles are American,” Lev said laughing. “None of them are showing their faces anymore.”

I waited in a horrible little living room of an apartment just off the marina while Lev procured his bounty. I could hear him and the tenant of the unit – a tall and thin man in his 60s – in the other room while Madonna played, doing God knows what. I was so hungry that I almost ate the man’s cat when it grazed my legs. I’ve eaten animals before when things got dire. But I couldn’t bring myself tonight. I thought about Bruce. I wondered if he ever looked for me.

When Lev had fulfilled his mission, he told me he wanted to smoke on the beach. I stumbled after him on the wet sand in front of a power plant while he ripped a few more drags from the pipe. I looked across the lake. The air was suddenly clear and I could just make out the flights of Erie. America. New York. I needed to get there.

Lev threw his pipe into the sand and started ripping off his clothes, his shoes and filthy socks. He ran into the lake, shrieking from the cold. Laughing. I was beginning to shut down. I watched him bob up and down, his flaccid cock flopping back and forth. The sky had opened up and the moon was coming out. A winter moon. He was free. I crawled across the sand and waded into the water on all fours, I frenzy-paddled and grabbed onto Lev who was still laughing. I clung to him, gasping, and he wrapped his arms around me and told me it was okay. He closed his eyes and started humming. When I bit into his neck and tore it out, he didn’t scream. He grunted a few times but that was all. It was quiet. He surrendered. He knew I was weak. This was his gift to me. It would only tide me over for a little longer but anything helped. I nearly drowned finishing him off. I struggled back to the shore and lay on my side for a while. I cried. When some time had passed and I had dried, I grabbed Lev’s wallet and threw his phone and clothes into the water, and walked towards the marina. Morning was coming.

***

New York came fast and easy. Only the lake crossing was complicated. Dave got spooked as we were about a mile from the port, and told me he wanted to turn back to Canada. He didn’t like that Lev backed out and was convinced I was undercover. That I would rat on him. I could tell he was high, but his paranoia was justified. Before he could steer us anywhere, I used all the strength I had –which wasn’t much, even after killing Lev —to tackle Dave and bite into his throat. He screamed and resisted. He was strong. His blood tasted strong. Healthy. Much healthier than Lev’s. Sweet Lev. I locked my arms and legs around him and sunk my teeth deeper into his jugular. I drained him slowly. It felt so good. When he was dead, I felt more like myself. I grabbed his wallet and placed it into a waterproof sack, along with Lev’s. I threw on a life jacket and jumped overboard. Thank fuck the water was calm that night, because I was able to thrash my own body towards shore –essentially walking in place until I taught myself out how to kick my legs. I had propulsion. I could swim. It took almost an hour, but I made it to an empty, rocky beach, undetected. I dragged myself into the woods and watched Dave’s boat drifting. A police helicopter, shouting something indecipherable down at the boat that was illuminated in its searchlight, hovered overhead. A boat was speeding towards it. They would find Dave’s body, and later, maybe Lev’s, floating in some far corner of the lake. There would be a search in the area. But I would be gone by then.

I arrived in New York City around 8 pm, at the Port Authority Bus Terminal. Soldiers and dogs were everywhere, stopping people. I knew I smelled but so did 40% of the population here. There were giant, sad Christmas wreaths and Christmas music blaring. There were people holding signs, wearing bandanas around their faces.

RESIST

NOT OUR COUNTRY.

NOT MY PRESIDENT

I needed food. I needed to rest. I had to find shelter. I purchased a Metro Card and a child – a boy – surged through my head. A memory of myself as a child; an actual child, before all of this, on the shoulders of someone. A man. We were in a crowd. It was in Manhattan, towards the southern tip of the city. Lower Manhattan. On Broadway. I watched people in gorgeous dresses and coats descending underground.

“It’s a prototype,” the man who held me said.

Who was this man?

This man was my father.

I would go downtown, where I had been with my father, when I was a child. In this city I was born in. I needed to be there. There was always a there, there. It was never enough. Never enough food. Never enough places. Never enough of anything. Here I was in the center of the world and it didn’t matter. It would all be gone soon.

The trains were delayed because of a protest at Union Square. If I didn’t eat anything soon, I would get desperate. I couldn’t let that happen. Too many had died already for me. I was woozy. I sank into a ball and fell over. I heard murmurs. I’m sure they assumed I was on heroin, fentanyl. Whatever. Poor guy. Nodding out on the subway platform like any other dopefiend. Like Eric. Like so many men and women I’d met before. My kind of people. The easiest kind to string along. To help me. To dispose of. A woman asked me if I was all right. I wasn’t. I had pain swelling up through my body. Spearing me through my chest in and out. The symphony of pain that drove me to keep going, to keep surviving.

“Please go away,” I said, my head buried under my arms.

Where was that train? I was here when it was just a concept. A prototype that ran from one end of the street to another. An attraction for the rich to play on. I deserved the trains to run on time. The trains should show me respect. All of these idiots should show me respect. I am their elder. Respect me!

An announcement blared. This line was closed because of an incident. Everyone needed to leave the platform. I jumped onto the platform. The same woman who offered to help gasped. A man shouted “Hey!” Another yelled “Stop that guy!”

I could barely walk at this point. I limped through the tunnel, staying close to the wall and running my palm along it for guidance. I could hear rats. I picked one up and ate it. And then another. And another. Their blood was sour and thin. I kept walking, propped up by the rats. I walked past several, empty stations. It felt like hours. Time didn’t matter anymore. I would find my father downtown. I’d dig up his bones and sleep with them like a blanket. And my mother, too. I had a mother. I had a mother and a father, and sisters. Three of them. And a brother. I was the first. The oldest. I took care of them.

Union Square was up ahead. I heard the din of shouting. Percussion. Sirens. Shouting. The protest. The protest. This stupid country. I could picture my mother’s face now. And my father’s. My siblings. We lived in a small apartment in the Bowery. The Bowery! Where I was born. I was born in the apartment I was raised in. We all were. My father built things. A bridge. The Brooklyn Bridge. He drank too much, like his father did, back in Ireland. We came from Ireland. I believed in God. My father died when I was 12. My mother sang to us. She sold things outside. She sold herself. I did too, when I got older; I sold myself to men and women. My mother died of smallpox. I raised my siblings. I never married. I met a vampire one night. He was kind to me. He bought me food. He danced with me. He brought me to the East River and he bit into me. He drank me, but he heard something –a person, a group – something and he left me there. I was dying, I watched the sky and thought about my mother’s singing and my father’s shoulders. Then I wasn’t dead. I was starving. And I knew I had to kill. I looked for the one who turned me, but he was gone. My siblings searched for me. I watched them grow and marry and leave and stay. I watched them die. I watched the city expand and contract. I watched it grow. I would leave and return, just like I’ve been doing this entire time. I go to see if there’s more and realize there isn’t and so I come back. Like I am right now.

I climb up on the platform at Union Square and hear a commotion. There is screaming. Thuds. A group of men dressed in camo pants, tight black t-shirts –some are wearing armbands with a swastika are fighting riot police. The police are outnumbered. One of their shields gets smashed and a camo pants man begins beating them with their own baton. I crawl towards them. I think of my parents; I think of my siblings. I think of Bruce. Where is Bruce? Maybe he’s here. I think of holding Bruce. I think of Lev, and Dave, and Eric and Alaska. I think of everywhere I’ve ever been. I grab the camo pant man and bite into his leg. He shrieks. I grab his neck towards me and rip it out. I eat his throat. I tear open his chest and eat his heart. Two of his friends come to drag them away, but I stop them, too. One punches me and kicks me. I pull his leg off, he bleeds and I put my face up to it like a fountain. I drink him and I drink the other. The others, including the cop on his feet, try to run but they can’t get away. I kill them all. I tear their arms off. Their heads. I eat their flesh. Their blood spills out everywhere like a broken hose and I bathe in it. I run my hands through my hair and up and down my body. My eyes and teeth throb. I think of New York. My home. I think of America. I laugh and I stand.

\The beaten officer is behind me. He regains himself and sits up. He slips on the blood as he stands, but gets to his feet. He can barely breathe. He takes out his gun and he shoots me in the back. I turn around and face him. He continues to shoot. He empties a round into me. The last bullet enters my brain. I fall to the ground, into the blood. My blood which isn’t my own mixing with theirs. We are together. I am dying.

I think about my father. My mother. My family. I remember my name. It’s Liam. I was loved.

I’m Martha. I’ve written you emails so many times before but never sent them because I was worried they weren’t good enough. For a while you were the best singer that nobody knew about and now you’re blowing up. I’m so happy for you. I’m so proud. I was there from the beginning. I don’t remember exactly when I found you… I think during COVID. OK, I don’t know why I’m lying lol. Of course I remember when I first found you: April 15th, 2020. 7:46 pm! I know the time because I am looking at a phone note I wrote at that exact moment. Your name. I looked you up on YouTube and that was that. Your songs just stuck right into my marrow from the start. You made everything in that moment make sense for me. You’re going to move further up the cresting wave above you. You’re flying, Jamie.

Listen to me!! I am trying to be poetic because I’m talking to the greatest living poet. I really believe this. You’re a songwriter, of course, but you’re a poet. One day you will win the Nobel Prize like Bob Dylan. Mark my words. I’ve seen the rumors that you got arrested but I refuse to believe it’s true. It can’t be true. You need to sing. You need to perform. I need your music and lyrics. I’m no writer, Jamie, but I’m observant. At least sometimes. I know what’s good. You’re better than good.

I’m writing to you from Los Angeles, where I’m doing a little sabbatical. Aka I quit my fuck-ass job in Florida and decided to live here for a whole quarter or until I run out of money and have to find a job or go back home. What do you think? Should I move here? I’m originally from North Jersey. I moved down to Fort Lauderdale to work at a rehab. I’m not sober but they were looking for people to work as techs and I impulsively applied because New Jersey was getting too depressing and somehow I got it? Lol! Florida is about as bad as you’d imagine. So I thought I’d do a trial run. If it doesn’t work I can at least be homeless here. I know I haven’t been here long but I can already tell California has a darkness to it. It feels built on bones. It’s too new. Too malleable. The Northeast feels fixed. So does the South. The West is this whole other thing.

I kind of hate it, I think. But I also love it. It scares me for sure. When my flight was getting closer and over the mountains to the east I suddenly regretted ever even knowing that California existed at all. The sunlight isn’t gold. It’s kind of just dim and late at all times. But also blinding? How. It’s always 2 pm here. Maybe it’s all the smoke from the wildfires up in Canada. Did you hear about that serial killer in Canada ps??? You should talk about it on the pod. He’s killing people in small towns and shit. Rest stops. Motels. Prob meth heads. Canada is so random. It’s so huge. But it looks beautiful. Also, I shouldn’t assume the serial killer’s gender. Maybe it’s a woman. Or a they/them. Why not? Why are there fires happening right now, anyway? It’s almost fucking Christmas and Canada is supposed to be cold. Fuck climate change.

I feel gaslit by Los Angeles. I came here for oven dryness because Florida is sinking; the humidity chokes you. LA is a cold place. Cold dry, like I am on the moon. They’ve confirmed the climate in Southern California has shifted. Traded with the Pacific Northwest. There is flooding in the winter; the water cracks the roads. The rain brings green. Summer starts in September. The green burns in the hot winds until January. Then the rain comes again. Somehow there’s never enough water to stop fire and drought. The earth could break apart at any moment. It feels cruel. LA is cruel. I am certain of this after only being here 36 hours.

I landed in Burbank and then took a bus to Hollywood and walked here. I’m housesitting at this bungalow in Hollywood Heights. It’s 2,000 square feet and from the 1920s and I am confident it’s haunted. It rests at the base of the “High Tower” –a five story foot elevator that leads from the street to the houses up in the hill. It reminds me of this photo I saw of a prison in Venice, Italy; I saw it in a history textbook in high school. I feel like I stopped retaining things somewhere in high school. Only residents of this street can access the High Tower with a special key. It’s 100 feet tall. I read its Wikipedia. Tomorrow if I actually leave the house I might take it up to the top and jump. Just kidding!

But I’m sure some young actress did that back in the day. She felt older than anyone has ever felt by the age of 26 and decided she'd seen everything she needed to. Things were simpler then. I guess I shouldn’t judge LA yet until I’ve actually gone outside.

There was a car bomb here yesterday. The crime app says it happened in Mid-City, whatever that means. I can’t even begin to try and understand this place or its neighborhoods. Zones. Sectors. Only two people died in the bomb so I guess that’s a win. I think LA is the perfect place for car bombs because everyone drives. New York City feels too expected for terrorism now. I read that there’s been a car bomb in Los Angeles every day here since the election.

Jamie, where are you? I miss your music. I miss hearing you sing. I miss your lives. It’s been three weeks now. I’m glad your Spotify and Soundcloud didn’t get shut down like your YouTube and Twitch did. At least I can still listen to your music. What you said during your live on election night— obviously you were kidding. People have said far worse about the president. People have actually shot at him. You were just saying it will probably happen again if he wins. And that maybe it wouldn’t be a bad thing! How is that a threat? People online are saying the secret service came to your house in LA. But who knows if that’s true. I hope you and Rob went to Europe or something. It helps to have a boyfriend who’s Irish! He’s from Ireland-Ireland, too, right? Not UK Ireland. EU Ireland. I remember you saying that. That’s so cool. You should just live there and wear peasant dresses and write Celtic shoegaze lol. You’re such a hot couple. I hope you have babies. Only if you want that obv. I don’t! But I feel like you’d be a good mom. I can’t wait for your album about ambivalent motherhood lol. Not that you’ll be ambivalent! Sorry. I just am basing this off what you’ve talked about in interviews. I take it back!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I really hope you’re OK and not in prison or in a gulag. I hope you’re just taking a breather on vacation in Big Sur or something. Writing music there. I Googled it. It looks gorgeous and peaceful. People were being so unhinged after you said what you said. I saw people tweeting at the White House. The FBI. Sending you death threats. I reported as many people as I could. I got into like 14 fights on Facebook and told some fucking racist bitch from West Virginia that I hope her kid died. Obviously I don’t want the kid to die! She took it seriously of course. I said it under a burner account but I was worried I’d be discovered and canceled. Not that I even have any reason to be canceled. No one knows me. Getting cancelled doesn’t exist anymore. Our country doesn’t exist. Now instead of getting canceled you get arrested. I really hope this didn’t happen to you, Jamie. I’m so sorry about everything. I didn’t vote.

You and Rob are one of the hottest couples I know. Are you going to get married? You don’t need to answer that. I was married before for 2 years. My husband died of the flu in 2025. His name was Brent. His mom died of it, too. And his cousin in NYC who I never met; he was gay and apparently nice. Brent's other cousin Eddie died, too. But a month before the flu. He was this big troll. He was at the Insurrection on Jan 6th but got pardoned by the president when he took office for the second time. LOL! I married into an iconic family tbh. There was a big manhunt for Eddie and they found him in his car in Pennsylvania or Ohio –I forget. He had a disassembled bomb in his truck. He starved himself to death and essentially fused to his car in the hot sun. He melted. So sick. I kept in touch with Brent’s aunt after everything settled. She eventually joined a cult in Utah. You need to look them up. They’re INSANE! Their leader is this lesbian/former acting coach in LA who says she’s channeling the Virgin Mary AND Joan Rivers and I’m obsessed with her Instagram. I’ll link it below for you. You will never be the same. Maybe you’ll write a song about it.

Sorry I’m telling you all this. I just feel like we would be friends IRL. I think it’s so punk you got kicked out of NYU. Fuck college anyway and fuck New York. You were better off in Georgia. I imagine you as like this witch in your hick town. Sorry, I hope that’s OK to say. Witch is a compliment obv! I don’t why I keep saying sorry. I know you understand. You’re a Georgian witch who found her way to the West. Geniuses don’t need college. Neither do witches. You’re both.

This annoying girl from my class went to NYU. Not that you’d know her. Who knows, though. We’re only four years apart. Crazier things have happened. It’s funny that I’m mentioning this girl in my class because I literally can’t remember her name at the moment and don’t feel like combing through my Insta or Facebook to find her. I’ve lost touch with most of my friends from home. And from college. I forget a lot of their faces. My friends recently were more Brent’s friends. And I lost touch with them, too. I forget a lot of things now. Do you find yourself forgetting stuff, too? Probably not. Your music is probably a tether. You know I’ve never actually seen you perform live? You came through NJ and even in Florida when I lived there and I never saw you play. I think I was too nervous. Or I was worried I’d be too overwhelmed. Your music feels so private, seeing you perform in person…I don’t know, it feels like a violation. Something we shouldn’t be seeing. Your streams and videos keep you at a distance and I almost think that’s better. Your label better not drop you Jamie. Or your agency.. Fuck. But even if they do, you will be OK. You will keep going.

I feel zero forward momentum right now. I am outside myself. I have felt this way since I was a kid. Alone and floating. I had a lot of friends when I was younger, though. I was able to maneuver through social castes with varying degrees of ease, depending on who I was with that day. I was something to everyone, which is always the best way to be liked. I was definitely nice when I needed to be and at worst, neutral. Neutrality was my resting state. I never bullied anyone, but I guess I never stopped bullying when I saw it happening. In a classroom or in the cafeteria or on a field trip. I always said to myself, It’s better to be quiet. You don/t have to laugh, but silence is no good, either. Glancing over with no reaction would be noticeable. Silence could be read as taking a stand and then you might be singled out, too. I could be seen as righteous better than, disapproving. And for that, I would have to die. LOL.

A muted smile was always my best move. Quiet amusement. I am not a narc! Also, I figured the kid who was being bullied might have noticed my inaction, but when they look back on their childhoods, they won’t remember the blank grins. They’ll remember the kid who put them in sleeper holds during tech class or being called fat or Miss Jugs after their boobs came in before everyone else. Everyone always remembers the worst. That’s just how it went. They might even think about me, and if they did, they’d remember me as nice and polite and a good student. None of those things were true, but that’s when you know you’ve succeeded. I planned for these retrospectives, you know? I feel like back then I was planning for decades. Never short term. I refused to stand for anything! That was my personal M.O. You probably would have thought I was basic if we knew each other back then. Whatever.

I just always wanted to be additive. Affirming. I didn’t want to give my opinion unless it was the correct opinion. Movies, music, TV. I sort of feel like I could anticipate what was acceptable then. I’ve lost that ability now. But back then I had a place in every group, from the theatre kids to the baseball guys. The lacrosse girls. The art kids. The kids who were excused from math class to go play computer games in carpeted rooms. I was always included in plans, always invited to sleepovers and Mitzvahs and church on Sundays. Boys asked me on dates and tried to kiss me at parties. So did some girls. This one girl Alice, who was obviously a lesbian, and had oily tomboy hair liked me. Alice was cool, though. She was also truly beautiful. My mom once commented on Alice and said she had “Patrician looks”. She never said that about me. I think she thought I was plain. She probably still does. I don’t talk to my mom much anymore. I feel like she has early onset dementia but no one tells me anything. I have an older half-brother from my dad’s first marriage. He and his wife are super random and live in Oregon and have ugly kids and don’t invite me to holidays. I think my brother hates me because my dad left his mom for my mom. Whatever. My mom was always so beautiful, more beautiful than his mom. I look like my dad.

Alice ran stage crew for the plays and was in choir with me. We were in class friends for a while and would text and stuff. Everyone thought she was gay. One time our choir went to this competition in Baltimore and stayed overnight near the Inner Harbor. Someone had smuggled their parents’ vodka in water bottles into their duffle bag and a select few got drunk together in a room on the far side of the floor, away from the chaperones. I didn’t drink. Alice drank a lot. Later after everyone went to bed she and I went swimming in the indoor pool and then hung out in the hallway and talked quietly. She came out to me and told me she had feelings for me and tried to kiss me. I didn’t know what to say. I thought she was cool but I didn’t have feelings for her. I didn’t have feelings for anyone, or anything. All I could do was give that same muted smile I gave when I saw someone being bullied and say, “That’s nice.” Alice started sobbing then cried in my lap till she passed out. After a while of just sitting there, I got tired. But I didn’t want to run the risk of getting caught out in the hallway past curfew. Especially with Alice. So, I left her there in the hallway alone. A chaperone found Alice there a few hours later. She’d pissed herself in her sleep and her parents had to come get her. She was suspended from school for a week. I tried to talk to her about it later but she avoided me in school. She ignored me in choir and in the hallways. She blocked my number and blocked me on Facebook.

One time during senior year I saw Alice at a party. She was drunk, again, and she shoved me against a wall when I was waiting for the bathroom inside. She told me she knew I was fully sober when I left her in the hallway, and how that was fucked up. She didn’t care if I wasn’t into her, but that she wanted me to know that she knew deep down, there wasn’t much to me. She laughed. Then she got serious and cocked her head, like she was examining me. She told me I scared her.

“You’re not OK,” she said quietly.

All I knew to do was smile again. She started tearing up again and ran off. Some girl nearby asked if I was OK.

“Did you turn down scissoring with her or something?” She asked.

I didn’t worry too much about what Alice said. I got voted “Kindest” in our graduating class. I knew I didn’t get Alice’s vote, but that didn’t matter. No one would ever know.

One night in the months after Brent died, when I wasn’t sleeping, I looked Alice up. She’s non-binary now and lives in Seattle and started this super successful cannabis app with their wife. The two met while working at Amazon. They have three kids. I requested to follow Alice on my regular Insta. Not my Finsta. They left it pending. Pending is better than denying.

I went to Rutgers for college and the only reason I got in was because my dad was an alum. My SAT scores were mid. My freshman year dorm was on the 18th floor and I can remember how clear it was on move-in day. I could see the skyline of Manhattan and the curvature of the earth. My roommate was this girl named Jen from the Bay Area who had bad skin and wine-colored dyed hair. She moved herself in a month before and was pre-med and eager. She talked quickly and had a terrible laugh that sounded like she was in pain. I remember my mom made a face to me when Jen’s back was turned and I suddenly felt bad for her. Even protective. Regardless, she was annoying as shit and homely. I did not want to be seen in public with her. I was planning to major in sociology, whatever that meant, so I figured we’d never see each other, anyway.

During freshman orientation I zeroed in on a group of girls from my building who were all sticking together because they could tell each other had been popular in high school. Popular kids always find each other. I kept quiet enough while seeming aloof so they’d think I was compelling. It worked. Soon I was neatly wedged into the clique. In no time our periods were all synced and we were all thinking of rushing the same sorority. They invited us to mixers and a few of the older girls told me that there were sisters calling dibs on me as a little. Sarah, who lived two doors down from me, was our leader. She was the youngest of five and loud and fun. She wasn’t gorgeous, but she was Long Island cute and tiny with big tits. She drove a black Jeep Cherokee that we used to go on liquor runs. Every so often, though, Sarah would be shockingly cruel. It would happen out of nowhere. It would paralyze you into submission. Everyone was afraid of her whiplash. Thankfully Sarah rarely picked on me because I didn’t talk.

It stayed hot that year through the end of October. It was more than Indian Summer. That was the beginning of the weather getting weird. The AC in my dorm was incredibly strong —so strong that I felt like I had a cold once a week. Sarah and a few of the other girls would come do their makeup and get ready before parties or games to keep from sweating. We listened to Dave Matthews and Soulja Boy while my roommate pretended to study on her side of the room. She would occasionally chime in. No one would answer her except Sarah, who spoke to her like you would a senile grandmother. I never invited my roommate to come with us anywhere. Eventually it seemed like she’d found a posse. Sometimes I’d come home to her eating pizza with other ugly girls. Then I rarely saw her at all. Apparently she started dating a guy in the “gay frat” and spent most of her time there. Once in a while she’d leave a note for me on the whiteboard.

Miss you roomie! :)

You too, I wrote back in small, neat handwriting. No exclamation point. I didn’t want to give her the wrong impression.

During Homecoming Weekend, myself, Sarah, and the other girls arranged a big dinner with our parents at the one nicest restaurants near Rutgers. On the drive back to the dorm my mom complained about Sarah’s parents being simpletons. My dad said he was happy I had such nice friends.

That winter break came fast. My first semester grades were as wretchedly mediocre as you could imagine. My parents rewarded me by not acknowledging them. One of the cutest guys I knew from school, Patrick, kept texting me in the lead up to Christmas. He and Sarah were quasi-dating but he was always super flirty with me and talked closely to my face. Sometimes he had bad breath. Not sour, more sweet. Like caramels left out in the sun. Sarah didn’t seem to notice his interest in me so I guessed it was in my head. But now his texts were explicit. He asked if I was a virgin. I lied and said no. I knew he wasn’t. He’d allegedly slept with a third of the girls in our building by Halloween. Sarah was allegedly “cool” with that. During Christmas Eve Mass my phone vibrated against the pew. It was a text from Patrick.

Have you ever been eaten out?

I snorted, startling my mother. She shot me daggers. I had to think about it for a moment. I knew the answer was no. I got fingered once by this guy on the JV baseball team at a party during sophomore year. But nothing more. I thought about Patrick looking up at me from my pussy. I luxuriated in the bath of that image till the end of mass. Outside, I saw a few girls from high school huddled together on the cold sidewalk while our parents mingled. One of them, Kelley, smoked a cigarette in plain sight of the adults, which I felt was bold. They each gave me stiff hugs and asked how school was.

“Good. You?”

Kelley, who went to Case Western Reserve in Ohio, answered for everyone.

“I love it so much,” She said, adding that Cleveland is “such a food city.”

“What else is there to do there but eat?” one of the other girls girl asked.

“There’s a party later at Ted’s house,” Kelley told me, ignoring that dig.

Who the fuck is Ted? I thought.

“Cool,”I said. “Let me know.”

I walked back to my parents just as another text from Patrick rolled in.

I bet you haven’t. You should let me eat you out. I can make you squirt.

My husband only ate me out eleven times during our entire relationship. We were together for almost a decade. I always made sure to write it down in my phone when he did. By the way, Jamie, do the coyotes in LA scare you? I heard them yipping the first night I was here and imagined them surrounding the house. I hear strange things up here, on the hill. I swore last night someone tried to get in through the backdoor, jumbling the doorknob. It’d be pretty stupid for someone to break into a house right now. The national guard has been here since the election and the LAPD has doubled their patrolling. There are checkpoints on all the freeways around the city. Regardless I am splayed out in the TV room because I’m too scared to sleep upstairs. I also feel weird about being in someone else’s bed. I’ve made a little camp ground down here. I feel like it’s starting to smell but I don’t want to open a window because then I’ll worry about forgetting to lock it later and a looter will come in and shoot me.

There’s also a cat somewhere in here that’s probably contributing to the stench. I haven't seen her once, though. She’s young, like four or something. A British Shorthair. You have a cat, too, right? I’ve never been a cat person. I leave food out for her and it’s getting eaten so I know she’s still alive. But I don’t want the coyotes to get her. Do you know they toy with their prey sometimes before eating it?

There are Amazon packages piling up on the front steps. I know I should bring them inside but I am afraid to leave. Maybe I’ll never leave here. The Hollywood Walk of Fame is nearby. I’ve thought about going to take a photo of Gwyneth Paltrow’s star. I’ve been reading Reddits about Hollywood: how everyone is on meth or dying from fentanyl; how international tourism is at a historic low. Can you blame international tourists, though? Who would want to come to this fucking country? I missed my husband last night so much, Jamie. You have no idea. Sometimes I don’t think about him for days on end and then it all hits me that he’s gone and I feel so much pain that I want to peel my flesh off. Dark! Sorry.

Anyway, a few nights before I went back to school that winter break, I did let Patrick eat me out. He lived 30 minutes from me in Rahway, New Jersey. His house looked like a giant mausoleum in the woods. His parents were in Turkey on vacation. And right when I got there we smoked out of his gravity bong. He’d ordered Chinese food which we ate in silence. I looked out the kitchen windows at the blackness of the woods and got scared and out of nowhere started thinking about my grandmother who died when I was eight. I immediately wanted to leave but Patrick wanted to watch a movie in his city-sized, finished basement. We watched Harry Potter –one of the sequels, I forget which one. I never read any of the books but no one ever asked me if I did, so I just went along with it.

After Patrick rubbed my inner thigh for a while, he pulled off my jeans and underwear and stuck his tongue inside me. It felt good for like 30 seconds and then I got bored. He tried dirty talking about how wet I was. How good I tasted. I considered shoving his face in deeper so he’d shut the fuck up, but I got lazy. Then after a little, he asked if he could fuck me. At this point, I truly didn’t care, so I let him. He jumped up and flung his pants and shirt off, standing in his black Nike socks. He grabbed a condom from a crack in the couch.

Then we fucked. The condom was definitely too big for him, but he was more capable at this than he was at eating pussy. The pressure was slight at first, then so intense that I felt like I was dying. Then it was just kind of happening. It was fine. He looked down at me, biting his lip and told me I felt amazing.

“Thanks,” I said, and then he shushed me with a kiss.

I kept my eyes open and could hear our tongues mashing together like scrambled egg. I looked over at Hagrid frozen on screen. He was mid-laugh. I started feeling scared again. This time nauseous, too. I felt upchuck but resolved to not throw up into Patrick’s face, so I waited till he came a surprising amount of time later. I ran to the basement bathroom and blew chunks with the fan on.

When I finished and had washed my face and rinsed out my mouth. I looked down on the white tile floor and saw blood. I grabbed a wad of toilet paper and wiped it up, then traced it over the blood leading down my leg. Patrick knocked on the door.

“Do you need a towel?” he asked.

I took a breath then opened the door. He was standing there, still shirtless, but with his pants on, grinning in a way that made me want to punch him.

“I’m good,” I said.

“Don’t worry about the couch,” he said, flicking his head back.

I wanted to die again. He patted me on the top of my head and I left shortly after.

I got home that night and didn’t leave my room for the last two days of break. Are you noticing a theme? Lol. I found out word had gotten back to Sarah that I slept with Patrick. By word I mean Patrick texted his friend Keith, who called his girlfriend Lindsay, who was best friends with Jaella, who was roommates with Sarah.

Sarah was mad, of course. Sure, she and Patrick weren’t officially dating but they definitely liked each other. Or at least she definitely liked him. Also, they hadn’t even full-on fucked yet. She half-sucked his dick. But he told her he liked her and wanted to wait to have sex because he loved getting to know her and taking things slow. Sarah hadn’t seen Patrick all break. She was in Aruba with her family for a week and got a text from Jaella. According to Patrick, I was blowing up his phone constantly and begging him to take my virginity every day. Sarah couldn’t blame Patrick. He was a people pleaser. Literally. He was a diagnosed codependent. It’s not his fault. He was also all alone during the holidays, which would make anyone sad. Patrick needed company and I was just there, like always. What was he supposed to do?

When I finally got back to school and approached my dorm, I heard the squeaking of shower shoes and looked up: a very tanned Sarah power-walked down the hallway in a green towel dress with her wet hair in a bun, clutching her pink shower caddy.

“Hey,” I said.

Sarah ignored me and walked into her room, slamming the door behind her. I considered going over and apologizing but then I pictured Hagrid’s face on Patrick’s TV and felt sick again. I got right into bed and watched Mad Men on my laptop, waiting for my roommate to come back.

I didn’t know Sarah had started a Facebook chat with the other girls in our group: Jaella, Lindsay, McCaffrey, Sloan, Helene, and Jess, to address the Martha Problem.

Jess, an intense Maine native who looked like Carolyn Bessette-Kennedy and was pre-law, took pity on me. She presented me with the evidence: a print out of the full conversation.

Sarah: What does Martha even offer our group? Really.

Jaella: Ya like we get ready in her room. OK.

Lindsay: It’s just because her room has good AC.

McCaffrey: I eat with her at d hall when I have no one else to eat with.

Jaella: She’s a good seat filler 4sure.

Sloan: Wait I nvr told u guys this but at that parent dinner we did, my dad said Martha’s parents left a small tip. He saw their portion of the bill.

Helene: Ewwwwww.

Jess: Okay, but that’s not Martha. Those are her parents.

Sloan: That’s a reflection!

Sarah: Bad genes.

McCaffrey: I don’t even remember what her parents look like

Jaella: They're kinda rich I guess. Idk.

Sloan: They absolutely not rich.

Jaella: I think her fam is well off.

Jess: Martha’s pretty friendly and nice. She just made a bad decision. Sarah, you should talk to her.

Lindsay: OMg Jess you love her

McCaffrey: lololol

Jess: This is stupid.

Sloan: Whats her major even?

Sarah: Fuck if I know

Jaella: Same

Helene: I think econ?

Sarah: Jess, obv Martha is like fine and nice enough but is it that shes nice or she just has nothing real to say? I cant really think of a time when I’ve actually talked to her about anything substantial.

Lindsay: She’s never asked me a personal question

Helene: Same

Jaella: Same! WTF!!!!

McCaffrey: she was just kind of there one day and never went away. Maybe she doesn't even go to our school.

Sloan: Lmao Caff…

McCaffrey: Maybe she’s a homeless chick who found her way into the dorms. Her parents are homeless too.

Lindsay: LOLLLLLL

Sloan: Crying

Helene: Legit lol

Jess: Whatever you guys are being so mean

Jaella: Whatever to YOU Jess. Fuck that random ass fucking bitch for real

Helene: She’s a random ass fat lut

Helene: *slut

Sloan: Random ass fat homeless slut!!!!

Helene: hahahahahahahahahah

Sarah: Omg guys lol

Eventually Sarah stopped inviting me places. No lunch or dinner. No pregames. No shuttle journeys to class. The girls ignored me when they saw me on the green. Everyone except Jess. For a little at least, Jess would still have breakfast and walk through campus with me, but eventually, she also disappeared. The guys started ignoring me, too. Patrick offered me sheepish waves from time-to-time. I could tell he felt bad maybe. He approached me in the dining hall once when no one else was looking. He asked how I was doing.

“Good. You?” I asked.

“I’m good,” he said. “Super busy.”

He leaned in and told me we should hang again sometime. I half-nodded and he patted my arm. I didn't bother rushing with the sorority I’d been circling the previous semester. None of the sisters reached out to me, anyway.

When it got warmer out, I tried to walk to campus as much as I could instead of taking the shuttle. I didn’t want to see anyone. I’d also gained weight, which my mom pointed out several times, so I figured a daily walkabout plus starvation would help remedy that. When I got to campus one day in the early afternoon, I was surprised to see it so empty. I wondered if there was an event I was missing. President Obama was coming to speak at some point. Then I assumed there was a mass shooting and the campus was on lockdown and the school forgot to text me. I wasn’t wearing a coat and my shoulders were showing in my top and I instantly regretted it because up ahead I saw a group of guys on the green. Some were sitting down – a few others kicking a soccer ball around. I walked as carefully and quickly as I could. I debated closing my eyes as I started to pass them.

Without looking their way, I started to hear some laughter. And then, in a crescendoed swell, they started barking at me. I hurried my pace without looking like I was running away but they’d already locked in, so it didn’t matter. I stole a glance their way and saw them laughing. I saw a guy in the front, whose back was to me. He hung his head to the side and I could tell he was laughing, too. It was only for a flicker, but I saw it was Patrick.

When I got back to my dorm, I thought I was going to cry but I realized I couldn’t. My roommate’s bed was neatly made and her side of the space was sparse. It felt like she’d moved a lot of things out when I wasn’t there. The whiteboard was up on the door. Blank. Welcoming. I picked up the marker and thought for a moment before pressing it against the board.

Hey! Long time no see. Hope you’re well!

I looked at it for a second. Then added: :-)

A few days later when I got home, I realized Jen had taken the white board down altogether. I knelt down on the floor and sobbed until I fell asleep.

During the college’s Spring Weekend in April, I decided to book a hotel room for two nights at a Marriott Courtyard a few towns over on a credit card my dad told me to use only for emergencies and drink wine till I blacked out. I didn’t want to hear Sarah and the other girls getting ready in Sarah’s room. I didn’t want to see Patrick and his pledge brothers keeping guard on the lawn of their frat house at some day party. I didn’t want to hear the muffled boom of Ed Sheeran or whoever the fuck they got to perform at the concert that year.

The Marriott was my Plan B. Kelley from high school had vaguely invited to visit her on Cleveland, but that was months ago. I messaged her on Facebook asking if I could take her up on her invite. She said she was busy studying for finals but said we should get lunch when she got home in a few weeks.

Fuck off, I wrote.

??? Kelley wrote back.

FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUCK. OFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I wrote back.

After about two minutes of typing and then stopping, and then typing again, Kelley just wrote, You’re an actual freak. Get help! Then she blocked me.

I packed an overnight bag and while I was getting my toiletries together, I realized I forgot my toothbrush in one of the showers the night before. I opened the door and poked my head out; I could hear music and laughter from Sarah’s room. Her door was cracked open. Now was my time. I started jogging to the bathroom and burst through the door. I got my toothbrush and then turned the shower on when I heard the girls shouting and laughing. I listened at the door until their voices trailed and I heard the elevator ding.

I walked to Sarah’s dorm and saw her door was still slightly opened — she always left it open when she went out and got drunk because she was prone to losing all her shit. I snuck into her room, grabbed her car keys and spit into my hand and then rubbed it on her pillow. I walked to the student lot till I got to her Jeep. The lot was totally empty, by the way. Everyone was either at the frats or getting a good spot for the concert. And I remembered Sarah saying she wanted to get a space in another parking lot because this one didn’t have working CCTV, so it made stealing her car super easy. At the time I didn’t consider it stealing, but with age comes wisdom! I drove out of campus, down the NJ turnpike till I read 295 and exited South Jersey to the Delaware Memorial Bridge, then into Maryland, where I stopped at the State Welcome Center and got McDonalds, and then kept going down I-95 till I’d reached Baltimore, then got to DC. I found a movie theater and watched The Hunger Games, then after, did a few donuts in the parking lot and drove back to New Jersey. By the time I got onto campus again, Sarah’s Jeep was running empty. After I parked, I made sure to keep the lights on and left it unlocked and made it back to the dorms by 10. Sarah’s dorm was still open; I parted the door like a curtain and peeked inside. She wasn’t back yet. I put the keys back where I found them, went back to my dorm and passed out.

I slept till lunch the next day, and I woke up to a campus security guard and two police officers knocking at my door. Sarah had reported her car broken into and surveillance –I guess the CCTV worked after all, Sarah!!!!! –showed me driving it along the turnpike, at the rest stop in Maryland, and at the movie theater in D.C. I was screwed. Those camera-scrambling face masks that the protestors in Hong Kong used hadn’t been invented yet! I did the best that I could explaining that I was just stressed about finals and going through some depression. Sarah (and her parents) decided not to press charges against me, but we settled on me paying her $1,000 for the wasted gas and a battery replacement. The school also required me to see a counselor if I wanted to stay at Rutgers. People in my dorm and on campus started calling me “Car Girl,” in those last few weeks of class, and Sarah seemed legitimately afraid to be in my presence whenever we happened to cross paths. After freshman year ended I applied to a community college near my parents and transferred.

I lived at home with my parents and commuted to school every day. My mom got me a job at a boutique in my hometown on the weekends that a rich woman whose husband developed McMansions owned. She was nice but had a drinking problem and often brownout-cried to me about how she wished she had moved to London after college.

I started taking painting classes in Jersey City at night and made friends with a gay guy named Aaron who was sober from opioids and working at Home Depot. He took me to an Occupy Wall Street protest one day in the city. I don’t remember much from it but I do remember how bad everyone smelled. I posted a selfie of me and Aaron at the protest on Facebook and only three people liked it. Someone from Rutgers who I forgot to block commented “Occupy Car Girl” and I took the photo down and deleted my entire profile for good.

When Brent and I started dating, he could only cum by humping a pillow after he was inside me. Have you ever seen this before? I feel like it’s more common with guys than we know. They grow up rubbing their dicks on a couch or pillow to practice and then get used to the sensation. Years later I brought that up in therapy and he didn’t speak to me for a day. I miss him. He didn’t like your music. He once told me it sounded like listening to a sad teen girl sing inside a church while you stand outside of it. I told him you’d love that description. He liked Coldplay. And Foster the People. “Hey! Ho!” music. It was very him, though. And that made it wonderful. I listen to them now, along with you, of course. I bought tickets to see Coldplay in Paris this fall. I’m not even sure Americans will be allowed to go to Paris that point. I balled out on first class seats and a nice room at the Ritz. I put it all on my Delta card lol. That’s how I made it here. I’m in so much debt. And my passport just expired. But I have to remember it’s all for Brent. He’d want me to go. C’est la vie!!!!!!!

I miss Brent’s smell. I forgot to save one of his shirts. I had his entire wardrobe washed and put into storage. Then when I lived in Florida I stopped being able to pay for the storage and they threw them all out. He had pretty terrible taste in clothes. I stopped drying to dress him. But he always smelled amazing. He had a nose. What he lacked in style he made up for in scent. It used to shock me. I know you didn’t lose anyone during the flu, Jamie, and I’m so grateful for that because it was pretty horrible. When Brent was dying, his neck swelled up and the blood vessels in his eyes burst. The ambulances and emergency rooms were too overwhelmed, so I had to drive Brent’s body myself to the only funeral home in the area that had room. They were doing mass cremations and had me leave him in the parking lot. I went back after the flu burned out and asked if there was any chance at all that his ashes could be salvaged. Of course, they couldn’t. But it didn’t hurt to be certain.

***

Jamie, if you can believe it, I finally left the house last night. I took the elevator up to the top of the High Tower and looked out over the city. I cried a little because it was so beautiful and sad and huge. I walked down to Hollywood Boulevard and got pizza and had someone take a photo of me outside the Chinese Theater. When I got back to the house, I realized I forgot to close the door. I literally left it wide open. Can you even???? What the fuck is wrong with me. Sometimes I think I’m actually dead and dreaming all of this. A neighbor – this sixty-something fucking cunt of with charred cigarette skin – came by with the cat. It had gotten out and wandered over to her garage and honestly thank god she was doing bloflex or whatever the fuck in her garage gym and it didn’t get eaten by a coyote. She asked me who I was and I told her I was house-sitting but she didn’t believe me and also kept asking me why I left the door wide open, especially when the city was under “siege” by domestic terrorists. I told her she needed to mind her own business and slammed the door behind me, then realized I forgot to get the cat back but I didn’t want to go outside again so I just let her have it. Whatever. I’m not a cat person. Are you? Did I already ask you this? I can’t remember. I’m having such a hard time remembering things now. Maybe it’s Long COVID. Do we all just have brain fog now? Everyone is just dumber and flakier. I spent the rest of last night watching porn on Reddit and masturbating, which I hadn’t done in months. After I did that I watched three episodes of Frasier and fell asleep. I dreamt about Alice. Stage Crew Alice. Nonbinary Alice. In the dream they were asleep on the carpet of the hotel hallway from our choir trip; I was on the other side. They looked peaceful. Happy. I kept walking towards them but never got closer.

I feel like I can be happy too, or at least I feel like I am capable of it. I just have to keep going. I don’t think there’s a lot of time left for any of us but I’ll keep going for as long as I can. I want you to keep going, too, Jamie. You are too special not to. You can’t stop making music. This is a moment now. You’ve touched so many people. You are changing things. If you stop now you’ll let them win. You will have given up. I have given up a lot, too. I’ve let them win. It’s never been worth it. Everything I have done has led me to this point.

It’s morning now and I can hear police downstairs banging on the front door. Outside there are three patrol cars. Neighbors, including the one from last night, have gathered in the street and are standing with their arms crossed, pointing, talking closely. They’re concerned. But I am kind. Remember? I was voted Kindest! Not very many people can say that. You can’t say that. I don’t consider you kind, but I do consider you brave. You make me brave. I am doing this for you, Jamie. I am not in your house to hurt you. I would never hurt you. I would never hurt anyone, not intentionally anyway. I am in your house to make sure you’re OK. But also to give you material for music. This is for your lore. Whenever you’re back from prison camp or whatever pit they are holding you in, you can write a song about this. People will stop talking about how you said the president should get assassinated and start talking about how a woman broke into your house and squatted there and made it stink and fed your cat. I know at first you’ll probably be scared of me but quickly you’ll see this was a good thing. You get it. You get me. A house is just a house. No one actually has anything. Because you know as well as I do that what’s mine is yours and yours is mine. We belong to the world.

He suggested the Hamptons but the Hamptons feel gay to me. Right? The Hamptons are kind of gay. I’ve been a few times, when I still lived in Manhattan in a shitty ass apartment in Murray Hill with two other guys and worked at a start-up and only slept like 4 nights a week and had Chlamydia every two months. I wore bright red pants and a white button down at a bar in Montauk and pretended to be OK with rosé being poured down my neck and pooling onto my collar bone like a reservoir. Rosé is gay. I hate the Hamptons. All the Ubers cost $90 and everywhere is 40 minutes away. I settled on Myrtle Beach. It felt sentimental to me. Our parents took us there as kids.

Me and my frat brothers went there for Spring Break during Junior year. Every single bar or clubs is basically Señor Frogs, and they’re all arranged like strip malls in parking lots that feel as big and empty as the sky. You just take a cheap Minivan cab there and blackout for under $60 a person. I had a threesome with this girl and my friend Cal on the trip. Cal and I roomed together at our frat house, so naturally, we did in Myrtle Beach.

He was from LA. His mom was a big TV producer. I visited him in the summer after freshman year and went to a party at Robert Pattinson’s house. We did coke and stayed awake till sunrise. We passed out in his bed together. Cal was taller than me and had a huge dick. But I always got more girls than he did. He was shy.

We met the girl at one of the bars. She was older than us, maybe 27 or so. And said it was her fantasy to be with two guys. We took her back to our room while no one was looking. It was super hot and sloppy but she kept asking us to kiss. At one point Cal did kiss me, and I let him. We kissed for a while, actually. I’ll admit it was nice. I forgot where I was. I could almost feel his heartbeat in my mouth, which made my heart race. Then he started to suck my dick, and I let him do that, too. The girl cheered him on and they took turns on me. She said she wanted to watch us more. I got on my back and Cal climbed on me and kissed me again; he rubbed his dick against mine, and I felt all over his body and his legs. We were so hard. He started to blow me again but after a little while, I got bored and sat up. I pressed my hand on his head to gently press him away. He turned white. He got up and threw his boxers on and ran out the door. Me and the girl tried to finish but I told her I needed to go find him and she told me she hoped we ended up together. She was annoying but I thought that was funny.

I found Callum stumbling in circle 8’s on the beach — the sun was just starting to fire its violent morning rays from the horizon, and Cal was bawling his eyes out. I grabbed his head in my hands and told him everything was OK, that it was our business and I would never tell anyone else. He cried and cried and kept shoving me off him until we got into a full fist fight. I broke his nose and he busted my lip and I tackled him to the sand and held him so he’d stop squirming. Eventually he stopped struggling and started to softly sob. I kept telling him he was all right and rubbed his body like I was keeping him warm.

We fell asleep like that and were woken up an hour or so later by beach patrol telling us the beach was closed because of a red algae bloom. There were scientists in hazmat suits ankle deep on the shoreline; schools of dead fish had washed up. It smelled horrible. We walked back to the hotel in silence. Cal barely looked at me once. I tried to make a joke but he didn’t laugh. We told our friends that we got jumped by some guys we bought coke from.

After that trip, Cal moved out of our room. He said he wanted to live alone to prep for finals because his grades were bad. He also made sure he was never alone with me in the same place. He lived in our frat’s satellite house off-campus house senior year. We lost touch after graduation— whatever touch we had had at that point, anyway. He didn’t invite me to his wedding, which wasn’t surprising.

When I met his wife, then-girlfriend, at SantaCon one year, she barely acknowledged me. Some of my other college friends were weird with me that day. I left the bar crawl when I heard from someone that Cal had been telling everyone I tried to fuck him once when we roomed together in college. I didn’t say anything about Myrtle Beach, like I promised him, and just said, If that’s what he needs to tell people, then that’s okay. Even in my brownout, I thought it was a progressive reply. I got myself a torso-sized slice at Artichoke Pizza and later, in the Uber back to my apartment, I threw up all over my Mrs. Claus outfit –which was extra hot because it was 70 fucking degrees in December. The winters were getting warmer. The Uber driver kicked me out before the ride was over. I gave him 5 stars and apologized in the app.

The next day I didn’t leave my bed until the sun started setting at 3 pm. I felt like Hell. I thought about calling Cal about the lie he was spreading, but I didn’t want to make a thing of it. It would blow over. I never talked to him again after that. One time, during the flu lockdown, Cal sent me an Instagram DM at 4 in the morning, but when I went to check it he’d already unsent it. Pussy. Sometimes I dream about him. I’ve jerked off to him approximately 12 times.

My brother was a huge bitch about the Myrtle Beach decision for like, 72 hours. He called me three times a day to offer to pay for us to at least go to Miami. He lives in London now. I live in Fort Lee, New Jersey. We have a weekly FaceTime check-in, which we always manage, even with the time difference, and I’ve only had to ask him for money once. I didn’t want to ask my dad for any. He retired when our mom got early onset dementia and he always had a bad cough. His life was shitty enough. My brother’s fiancée is from a rich family in Oxford and works for Burberry. Her mom apparently is friends with one of King’s brothers. Not the one who hung out with Epstein. The other one who everyone forgets. What’s his name? I don’t know. He’s balding like the rest of them. I think she’s decently nice. My wife can’t stand her.

There were 13 of us on this bachelor trip. Nine guys from my brother's frat at Yale, two of his friends from Delaware –where we grew up –and one of his new British friends, who worked at the same hedge fund. The British guy annoyed me. He was Pakistani or something— that’s not why he annoyed me either, so don’t even try. He just made little comments the whole weekend. America comments. My brother and his friends thought the snipes were funny, but then they’re all snobs now, so that tracked. He joked about the election and the president and kept saying this would be the last time he’d come to the states and how he was glad it was here in this “beautiful place.” I wasn't even planning on voting in the election — so many people I knew weren’t —but this British bitch made me want to. I don’t even like the president but sometimes I think he’s what our country deserves. We’ve been getting edged by authoritarianism for like, 12 years. Might as well just blow ropes, right? Let’s just commit to the bit fully. I told my wife that once, right after the president announced he was running for a third term, and she told me to never say that in front of anyone but her, ever.

We were good for a while, my wife and me. I really do love her. I love being married. I love being a husband. I’ve never cheated on her that I know of. I’m a wife guy. There, I said it. Even when we don’t fuck for huge chunks of time, I still think she’s the hottest girl who ever said yes to me. 60% of the time I jerk off, I’m thinking about her, which is honestly crazy. We aren’t going to have kids. We already decided that. Well, she decided that. She thinks it’s irresponsible with the way the world is going. Wealth disparity. Climate apocalypse. AI, etc. Whatever. I was mad about it for a year, but at this point, I don’t want them either. Fuck kids. I have a wife.

My wife mostly trusts me, which I am grateful for. Not as much lately, though. She’s always annoyed with me, or telling me not to say something. She stopped inviting me to friend dinners. She’s always doing girls’ nights, and since the start of this election year, she’s been attending women's groups at nights to talk about political action or some shit once a week. She’s had me go with her to a few climate protests, too. I’ve wondered if she was a dyke before, which would honestly be fine. But I also understand why she’s tired of me. We’ve been through a lot in the last few years. We had to move out of our place in Brooklyn when the start-up I worked for shuttered during COVID. We moved up to Washington Heights, and I got hired at a bank in midtown. Five years in I got laid off. DEI I guess. Or I assume —I never got full confirmation. My wife was a teacher at a school in the Bronx, so obviously that wasn’t going to help us. We moved to North Jersey, and she commuted into the city for a while until the government stopped funding 10% of public schools in the country and she had to get a job at Ulta.

My father-in-law’s friend hired me at his accounting firm in New Brunswick, thank God. My wife asked me to go to couple’s counseling with her when she thought I was smoking weed too much, a habit I started during my unemployment era. That, and that I was spending too much money on OnlyFans, which she found out during a tax audit –she took our taxes to another accountant, when I literally do that for work, by the way. That’s probably a good sign. She told the therapist she thought I was addicted to porn, which I said, obviously, yes I am, but that it didn’t really feel like that big of a deal because the creators I subscribe to are all AI. My wife said that made it worse. She told me she’d rather me cheat on her with a real human than sext with A.I., and I told her that sounded good and that I would explore that route. Then the therapist asked me if I thought I had depression. I asked the therapist if sleeping till 2 pm every day and watching 90 Day Fiance on my laptop while it overheated on my bare stomach counted as depression. My wife started crying and said I never take anything seriously. I agreed with her. We compromised on me only subscribing to five A.I. OnlyFans versus the ten I’d subscribed to previously. We fucked that night for the first time in six months. I love my wife. I really do.

Anyway, the TikTok that destroyed my life is only 25 seconds long. It started going viral while I was still passed out naked on the balcony of our heinous suite in Myrtle Beach. My brother came out to break the news to me. He was already showered and packed for the airport. I didn’t remember anything after 3 pm the previous day. We started drinking at breakfast at one of the few restaurants open; swaths of the city were still closed and recovering from massive flooding a few weeks prior. We decided on a booze cruise instead of a beach day. The beaches were closed because of a bad algae bloom. At least a few miles out, the ocean was unscathed. It was windless, though. And muggy. There were horseflies everywhere. My brother’s British friend gave me something called 2cb that he’d somehow managed to get past security at the airport, now littered with soldiers. It didn’t take long for the drug to work; I started crying while telling my brother how proud I was of him. A little later my dick got so hard I thought I was going to die –the horniness was different from any kind of MDMA horniness I ever felt. It felt unfathomable. Somehow militarized. My boner was fascist. It shot out through my bathing suit and everyone could see it and took pictures and videos. When we got back to the marina, my brother told me I was being messy and to chill the fuck out. I remember going to a beach party and nothing after that.

The user had captioned the video with “To whoever’s husband this is currently down bad at his brother’s bachelor party, you deserve better.” I’m shirtless and drenched in sweat grinding to “Work” by Rihanna and Drake with a woman in a bikini with huge tits. She’s biting down on my bottom lip and pulling it out as far as she can and you can see she has adult braces. I’m feeling up her ass, which is basically falling out of her bikini, and my wedding ring is clearly visible. My brother and one of his friends are behind me, alternating between amusement and trying feebly to extract me. You can start hearing me moan as I dance, the woman seems surprised by it. Suddenly, I pull away from her and you see me grip on my crotch, my eyes rolling in the back of my head . The woman, concerned, puts her hand on my shoulder, before realizing I have literally just cum in my bathing suit. It cuts away as she puts her hands to her mouth and backs off; people around me applaud and jeer. My brother, crying from laughter and horror, yanks me out of frame.

The video has four million views in less than 10 hours. There are 12,000 comments. My name, my employer’s name, screenshots of my wife’s and mine engagement photos and wedding registry. My LinkedIn. Her LinkedIn. I have 31 missed calls–29 of them from my wife, one from my dad and a voicemail from the HR lady at work. My brother brought me a Starbucks iced coffee and told me to stay calm. He heard through the finance grape vine that the newest TikTok ban, which the president has been threatening for the last year, is set to kick in before the end of the month. It’s really happening this time. This video will go away soon. Plus, his British friend knows someone high up in UK’s Homeland Security, and can probably get any residual screen record of the video scrubbed from social media if they pop up. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I asked him if he was joking. Homeland Security? My brother told me I needed to take this seriously. It wasn’t cheating, I told him. Sure, he said, but you splooged in your bathing suit and millions of people saw.

It was bad. I knew it was bad. I told my brother I couldn’t call my wife yet. He told me that was fine; he’d already spoken to her. He told her I was all right and would call her soon. Then my brother said it was a good thing my mom had dementia and we both laughed.

Half of my brother’s friends had bolted first thing, so the suite was pretty empty when I went inside to shower. One of them left me a physical check for his portion of the weekend. In the shower I could hear the guys we grew up with retelling cumgate, and how they’d gotten messages from most of their graduating high school class about it. I could hear my brother shushing them, half-giggling. Within an hour I was the only one left. My flight wasn’t till 4 pm, so I DoorDashed Taco Bell and ate it on a bed fully naked and then showered again. I humped a pillow for the first time since grade school. I thought about Cal and our threesome. I came twice.

I got dressed and started drafting a statement to post on my Instagram when my wife FaceTimed me again. This time I answered. She’d been crying, but was mostly just disgusted by the time we talked. I started crying myself and she told me to save the waterworks. She told me everyone in her life had seen the video, including her parents, her teenage niece, her coworkers. I told her I would formally apologize to everyone and started reading her the apology statement I’d begun to draft. Don’t you dare post that, she said. Say nothing, she said. I thought it was good. Then she said my brother’s fiancee called her, which made everything worse. She told me I should have just banged that skank in private like a normal person, and that she couldn’t even think of the last we danced together. Maybe on the party bus we took to see Bruce Springsteen for her cousin’s birthday.

While we talked, she sent me a few links about porn addiction and offered to go with me to SLAA meetings. She asked me if the AI porn had turned me into an incel, and asked me if I hated women now. I told her I loved all women, which seemed to piss her off even more. And then I said I don’t mean I love all women like I love you, but that I respect women; the only reason I came in front of everyone was that I didn’t want to cum while dancing on the woman because I didn’t have her consent to. I told her that actually my act of cumming was an act of feminism. She told me to stop talking and closed her eyes and gripped the bridge of her nose like she was thinking. I told her we can talk more when I get home tonight and she told me that wasn’t going to happen, because she was going to stay at her friend’s house in Hoboken for a few nights. She needed space. She hung up on me moments after I told her I loved her. I walked out onto the balcony and looked down the tower, 17 stories. I thought about jumping but I didn’t want to die in Myrtle Beach. Instead, I just packed up and went to check out.

Behind the front desk, a skinny gay guy in his early 20s with an eyebrow piercing and mild acne was working. He seemed like he was avoiding eye contact with me, even smirking as he prepared the bill. I wondered if he’d seen the TikTok. Another concierge person — a girl about his age —came out from the employee’s area with a coffee in a giant styrofoam cup. The gay walked back to staple the receipt together and said something quietly to the girl, who glanced at me carefully. I saw her look back at him and widen her eyes, smiling. Now I was certain. They’d seen me cum. They’d seen my eyes roll into the back of my head. They’d seen my sweat and burgeoning gynecomastia and my wedding ring gleaming in the awful sun.

The guy turned around, now with his professional face on, and handed me the bill. He started asking me if there was anything else he could help me with before I snatched it from his hand. It startled him. I leaned in slowly and bore my teeth and asked him if the TikTok turned him on. If seeing me cum got his widdle cock hard. The gay guy backed up a bit, and the girl stepped in front of him, asking me what the fuck my problem was. I told them they were fucking losers working at a shitty hotel in Myrtle Beach, and that’s all they’d ever do. The girl told me I was fat and nasty and had horrible breath and that if I didn’t leave she’d throw her hot coffee in my face. For whatever reason, I started chanting “four more years,” pumping my hand as I said it and backing up towards the door. The gay got out his phone and started filming me. At this point, I didn’t care. I started yelling. I told them I’d get them fired. I’d report them to the police, to the DHS. I took out my phone and started filming back. The girl cocked her arm back with the coffee still in her hand, as if to say, I will throw this. I ran out and got into the cab that was already waiting there in the valet area without asking the driver.

The TSA line at Myrtle Beach International Airport was shockingly long. There were more soldiers than usual; security at every airport in the country had become Guantanamo in a matter of minutes. While I was in the cab, the president had been shot at a rally again. This time it struck him in the shoulder. He survived, of course. He always did. I incorrectly hoped the assassination attempt would have rendered my TikTok obsolete. It now had six million views and nearly 20,000 comments. By the time I’d gotten to the airport I deleted all of my social media accounts, including my LinkedIn. I was waiting for the concierge gay’s video of me melting down in the hotel lobby to pop up, too, but so far, it hadn’t. My number had leaked and I was fielding spam calls and texts from trolls. The woman with adult braces had even made a three part TikTok explanation where she recapped her experience; she apologized to my wife and offered to talk to her and answer any questions. Know that I stand with you, the woman said.

I looked up how to change a phone number and accepted that my wife would leave me forever. My glorious wife. I also thought about getting out of line and going back to the hotel to apologize to the kids behind the front desk. They’d forgive me and delete whatever horrible video of me that he had ready to lob into the void. I considered staying in Myrtle Beach and starting a new life here driving drunk people from hotels to the bars.

My brother called me from Atlanta, where he was catching his flight to Heathrow. He told me I should consider leaving the country before the election. With all the mounting political violence, he felt like the president would declare martial law if he wins. Plus, he said, with everything happening in your world it might be good to get a change of scenery. I told him I’d think about it.

When I hung up, I saw I had a new text from Cal. I could hardly believe it. I was certain he’d blocked my number. He said he was hoping I was all right and was sorry about what happened. He told me even though it’d been a while since we saw each other, he was here for me if I needed to talk. I pictured us holding each other on the beach that morning, bloody and perfect, our flesh scalding in the morning sun.

Thanks man, I wrote and watched him read it in seconds. Then I started to type out my follow up. I looked down and could see my hands shaking but somehow I couldn’t feel them. It seemed like my breathing was so loud that it drowned whatever instructions the soldier standing near the TSA line was yelling at us as he gripped the harness of his German shepherd. I read and reread what I drafted multiple times, then after a few moments, I sent it. There it was. I love you, I wrote.

My eyes widened. It was too late to unsend now. I missed that window. But it didn’t matter. I was glad I missed it. I was glad I said it. I watched Cal read the ‘I love you.’ He began typing. The ellipsis expanded and fell back over and over, for almost a minute, like a lung. Suddenly he stopped typing. Nothing else followed. He left me on read and that was that. I nearly gasped, I was so relieved. And I started to cry, because sometimes saying nothing is the only way to say it back.

“You love being in plays,” my dad said. “Put your acting skills to good use.”

It worked. I still did poorly on the SATs, even with extra time. But I stayed on Adderall. By senior year, I told my parents I was worried the drug was making it hard for me to have reactions to things. I read that Adderall could make you not dream. Not that I cared really about that. But I liked having the option. They told me I was being dramatic. I stopped taking it a year after I graduated college, right before I moved up to New York from my parents’ house in Maryland. I kept the prescription only for emergency uses on weekends, when I’d return to my shithole apartment in Williamsburg and feel my body shutting down around 6 pm after a piggish Saturday of steady IPAs, bar nachos and an entire pack of Marlboro Lights, which I replaced with American Spirits after an unsuccessful go at AA. American Spirits are the official cigarette of alcoholics in recovery. The Adderall would allow me to fulfill my vague plans with vague friends at a party in Bushwick or Bedstuy.

Friends who didn’t know what I did for a living or if I had siblings. Friends I didn’t care about either, other than fortification for when I walked into a new place. I’d mill around them and share cigarettes and MDMA or K until I either found another group of randoms to go do more drugs somewhere deeper in Brooklyn, like Gowanus, or over the bridge in Manhattan where there would either be an orgy or some random straight person after party. I’d find myself doing nitrous balloons at 10 am with a guy I just met who worked as a sound designer.

Either all of that, or I’d find someone to fuck at the yard sale that happens at any given gay bar in New York around 3:40 AM, after last call is declared.

The party tonight was at my old roommate Hedi’s new place near Union Square that he shared with his fiancé, Aaron. Aaron worked in private equity. Hedi worked in international sales for a chic film production company and was often in Paris and Berlin. He was beautiful and from Tunisia. I worked for a bank and sometimes traveled to Charlotte, North Carolina.

Hedi and Aaron got engaged fast; I figured for citizenship. I knew there were issues with Hedi’s green card recently. I met him for a drink a few months back, and he said his company was trying to expedite a renewal but it was taking too long. He’d made connections with people who knew gays in the state department. They were keeping Hedi under the radar. There were people helping him out; he had that thing about him. He wasn’t traveling overseas anymore. He was staying in New York, keeping a low profile. They were planning to marry on New Year’s Eve. A lot of faggots – plain ordinary citizen faggots —were getting married these days, especially after the election.

The president-elect, also the incumbent, now about to enter his third term, had kind of promised to repeal same sex marriage during his characteristically marathon campaign speeches. Many people figured he was bluffing but when he actually won, which was still being contested by the House and Senate, and half of the country, and most of the world, the marriage threat felt more real. Violence against queers increased by something like, 300%. Or was it 400% I can’t remember. I saw it in one of the countless infographics shared on Instagram in the weeks after the election. There were a lot of rumors. People leaving the country in the middle of the night. A trans girl who DJd parties in LA and once walked in a Marc Jacobs show was arrested off the street by plain clothes cops for a supposed death threat she made against the president-elect on TikTok and hadn’t been seen since. A gay man in rural Illinois was catfished on an app by a anti-child groomer vigilante group and lynched in a park. A lesbian couple in upstate New York that were making out at a restaurant were kicked out for indecency. Companies were being visited by ICE every day, even in sanctuary cities, vetting any employee for their citizenship status. People –including green card holders, families here for decades –were being deported en masse. ICE tipline posters lined the walls in every subway station. Millie Bobby Brown Netflix movie. Manhattan storage unit company. ICE tipline. Children were allegedly being encouraged in school to use the tip line. Things were getting stranger every day. I wasn’t necessarily scared but I took my face off my Grindr and Scruff profiles and made sure my social media was private. I deleted anything political or gay. Not that I had much of that on my feeds. I didn’t really post much.

Sometimes, in a blackout, while I was sitting on my bed that I would eventually wet, polishing off one of the four Sapporo tall boys I bought at the gas station 400 feet from my building after finishing my nightly magnum, I’d start crying randomly and watch a smattering of the most heart wrenching scenes from movies I could think of a cry more. My sob-buffet. I’d wake up to a grid post on Instagram of a cell phone recording of the last scene of “Gladiator,” when Russell Crowe is dying, with no caption and one comment from an acquaintance that just asked “?” I’d panic-delete and strip my pissed-soaked sheets and bring them in a duffel bag to the laundry mat on my way to the subway; the woman at the register – the daughter of the old couple that ran it – would remind me I had bags of sheets I’d dropped off months ago still waiting to be claimed. I told her I would come to get them after work, and never did.

When I got home from work that day, one of my final days before Christmas break, I tried on three different outfits from the unpacked bags of fresh laundry I kept in the corner of my room. On the Paperless post for Hedi’s party, the attire was listed as “whatever black tie means to you :)” The stupidest thing anyone could say. I had one single black suit from Dries van Notten that didn’t fit me anymore since I started wine-bloating. I stared at my hairline which had absolutely started to recede more since I forgot to update my payment on my finasteride prescription. They were making PrEP more difficult to get; more expensive. My insurance stopped covering it. I decided to stockpile until I couldn’t afford it any longer. had to choose between raw fucking and a low-tide hairline. If I was more sober, I should have chosen my hair and stopped having sex altogether. They’d certainly prefer that. They want us to all be eunuchs with paintbrush hair. I decided on an ill-fitted grey suit I got at Nordstrom Rack the last time I was visiting my parents and needed something for a funeral. It was way too big, even now when I was fat, and decidedly not black. But Hedi and Aaron would have to deal. Fuck Aaron. Aaron hated me and I hated him.

I hated the West Village Gays. That’s what I called them. Most of them didn’t even live in the West Village, or had since moved out to Brooklyn or to LA. Now the 23-year-old TikTok girlies and Stüssy bros held merciless dominion over it. When I moved to the city, I was convinced all the cool gays lived in the West Village, so the name stuck for me. They’d never be anything else. Hedi was friends with them now. They didn’t pay him much mind when we were living together and used to go out on weekends, and would sometimes overlap with them socially. These crisp, 6’1 cocksuckers with rower bodies who walked past us like we were ghosts.

“Gays who’d never been bullied,” Hedi said.

He was right. The way they laughed and moved, I felt certain they never experienced hardship. Somehow. Not in the post-Glee acceptance of faggotry – we were all too old for that –but they’d passed enough as straight that by the time they came out, either after college or after maybe carrying on a secret relationship with a frat brother, they’d already established themselves as invincible. I did drama and swam. I never had a chance.

I guess they didn’t always ignore us. Sometimes they saw through the veil, and beheld us. Gave us drugs. They asked questions and seemed genuine. They laughed at what I said, even when what I said wasn’t funny. They thought I was funny. But they didn’t want to fuck me. I was Gay Clown. Gay Clowns get a pass once in a while. Five years ago maybe they would have slept with me if they were drunk or high enough. I used to be hot. Really. I had abs without out much effort. I still have a decently big uncut cock that works 80% of the time, and I’m still funny. But I’m kind of flabby now. Even when I was cute, they knew I wasn’t one of them. It was just science. There was nothing I could do. The West Village Gays all wanted to fuck Hedi then, and they still do. Hedi is gorgeous and kind. But he’s also not white, so back then, they didn’t take him seriously. But then Aaron noticed Hedi and everything changed. Now they loved Hedi. Now Hedi was a West Village gay.

I lit some rose-incense because I was convinced my room still smelled like piss, and ordered Chinese food. While I was eating my younger cousin FaceTimed me from college –I forget which one; maybe Alabama? Auburn. She’s in a sorority and has three-hundred thousand followers on TikTok where she opens packages and does boyband choreography with her sisters. She was crying to me about the TikTok ban – the third ban in five years –and how she felt like she has no future or business prospects post-graduation. She said her best friend’s Little in their sorority, who came into college already with close to a million followers, tried to kill herself the other night by jumping off the roof of their house after she couldn't access her account. She broke both her legs instead. In the ambulance she tried to bite into her own wrists to open the vein and blood shot into the face of one of the EMTs, according to my cousin’s best friend.

My cousin’s older brother died at fifteen. We were the same age and used to be close until we got to middle school and one of his friends who I had never met before asked me if I “considered myself a faggot” when I was visiting one weekend. My cousin didn’t defend me and instead I saw him smirking while he waited for porn to download on the family computer in the basement. Later, right after dinner, my dad got me early. I told my aunt I was feeling sick. My cousin didn’t say bye to me. I never visited them again. Three years later another friend who I didn’t meet accidentally shot my cousin in the neck at a party with his dad’s handgun. The kid was drunk and waving the gun around all night and my cousin tried swatting it away in the driveway and the gun went off. No one called for help for almost an hour because they were worried they’d all be implicated. I didn’t cry at his funeral but I made up for it by letting his sister, who was two when he died, FaceTime me against my will when she needed to vent. I told her that social media would always be an unstable economy because it threatens politicians and billionaires and that she should leverage her talents into trying theatre or other performing arts.

“I did theatre all through high school and college,” I said. “It kept me from wanting to die.”

“Why are you making this about you, Andy?” she asked.

She added that doing theatre was impossible anyway because the school’s drama department stopped getting funding. Then I told her I had to go because my building’s fire alarm was going off. She said she didn’t hear an alarm and I hung up. I apologized for hanging up over text. I said my WiFi was bad. She didn’t reply.

I let out a fart I’d been holding in since I left work and wandered over to the empty room Hedi used to occupy. Hedi told me to bring a date tonight. I drafted several responses to him, including “I’m gonna bring a date to shoot me in the face in front of all your friends.”

I hadn’t dated anyone in years. The last guy was Thomas, who I slept with 10 times and went on one stilted dinner date. Stilted because I was hungover and in a bad mood. Midway through I asked him if he wanted to do coke. He seemed only mildly confused and did a few polite bumps in the bathroom of the bar we went to afterward. I stopped answering his texts, not because I didn’t like him. I did like him, a lot, actually. He was probably the nicest guy I ever met in New York. I just didn’t have the energy. I found out he died from the comments of his most recent and final Instagram post. I stopped by the entrance to his building shortly after the flu faded and the lockdown lifted. I still was wearing a mask, mostly because I looked like shit. Thomas lived up in Washington Heights, which made me feel better about not having invested in him; that’s too much effort. Memorials were set up on stoops of brownstones and apartment complexes around the city – more than 100,000 deaths in New York City alone. Flowers, tea lights and candles, pictures. Notes. It felt like images I’d seen in textbooks of Day of the Dead in Mexico. A framed photo of Thomas laughing on a beach somewhere was surrounded by notes and flowers. I brought nothing.

“Did you know Thomas?” I heard a man ask.

I turned and saw a gay standing nearby. Behind him, a few grievers he was with embraced each other. Laughing. Crying. His eyes were red, face ruddy. He smiled painfully.

“No,” I said.

“Ah,” he said, almost skeptically. “I’m Robbie, by the way.”

I nodded and turned, leaving him there. I waited down the street a little, perusing the other stoop vigils while keeping an eye on Thomas’s. When it got darker, I saw his friends leave and headed back. On the way, I snatched a bouquet from a neighboring stoop and all but threw it at Thomas’s memorial.

Instead I wrote back to Hedi, I’ll try to find one!

A new person, a gay from Providence still used Facebook was set to move into my place shortly. He paid the security deposit and first month’s rent but I hadn’t heard from him since a few days after the election. He told me he were “going to visit friends upstate” and that he would only be communicating on Signal from here on out. I never downloaded it.

Standing in that empty room, I missed Hedi, which surprised me. Even when we lived together, we only hung out sporadically, but I felt close to him, and I think he felt close to me. We understood each other. We honored each other's boundaries. We talked to each other when it felt right. Occasionally, we would watch Real Housewives. Or when there was a presidential debate. Sometimes he would cook and leave food out for me, like an offering. But there was never any pressure.

Once on a random night in the first year, we both came home from the bars around the same time. He had half of an eight ball left and we did blow in his room and smoked cigarettes and listened to Ray of Light by Madonna. When it started getting light out outside, we showed each other our dick pic files in our phones and for a few moments it felt like we might fuck, but we didn’t. We both went to sleep. When I woke up, it was close to noon, and Hedi had already left for a workout class. We would go out together occasionally; we stayed in New York for Christmas one year and got gag presents for each other. It was only the third time Hedi had celebrated it. We would see each other at parties around Brooklyn, and raves I spent holding my phone above me to get reception so I could text my dealer. One time Hedi told me to meet him and his new friends at a Sunday day party at Le Bain. I didn’t recognize anyone. Hedi introduced me to his friends, who didn’t ask me anything about myself. I drank four pint beers within an hour and promptly browned out. I didn’t want to seem clingy with him so I gave him space and wandered around. Eventually I started talking to a butterface anesthesiologist with 2% body fat who bought me drinks. He asked me if I wanted to do G with him, which I had done once a few years prior at an after party with my friend Corey who went to rehab twice but didn’t stay sober and eventually moved back to his family’s palatial home in Connecticut and lost touch with me except for an occasional, strangely aggressive Instagram DM.

I knew I shouldn’t mix G with alcohol but suddenly I found myself with the good doctor in the corner of the crowded deck outside, looking at the golden sky over New Jersey across the river, as his dropper hovered over my drink. A little bit later I started feeling sick and the dentist brought me into a stall in the restroom and started sucking my limp dick for seven minutes before giving up and leaving me there. I sat on the toilet and passed out for god knows how long until a loud twink discovered me and I woke up to him screaming that I was dead until it became a scene. I was removed by hotel staff and came in a cab on the way back to Bedstuy to a barrage of texts from Hedi. He’d heard what happened and was rushing home to meet me. He helped me throw up until the swirl wore off. He ordered me broth and we watched the Kardashians till I felt safe enough to go to bed without worrying that I would aspirate in my sleep and die. We didn’t talk about it the next day. I didn’t go out for a month, and I successfully avoided seeing Hedi’s friends until a few of them came over to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race a few weeks later on my final monastic Friday.

It was the first time I met Aaron. He was 5’11 and toned and had a better hairline than me. I watched with them for twenty minutes, listening to their sporadic commentary which was sort of entertaining but all sounded the same and then had a vision of myself waking up in the stall at The Standard and knew they’d had a recap convo about in whatever faggot group chat they send memes to daily and I suddenly wanted to die. I stood up and grabbed my coat, quietly telling Hedi that I forgot I was meeting up with some friends at the bar. They all threw out their goodbyes, now prolonged in wine soaked exaggeration. I closed the door behind me and waited for a few moments outside in the hallway and thought I heard some snickering and couldn’t bear to confirm it was real so I walked quickly to the gay bar a few blocks away and ordered a shot of whiskey and an IPA and felt butch. I

I texted my kind-of-friend Conor who I hadn’t seen in a few weeks. My one-time sponsor described him as a lower companion. I told him to meet me. I watched the typing ellipsis in the text box start and stop about six times before he finally decided on “I’m upstate babe!” I never understood what upstate meant. “Upstate” can’t help but look passive aggressive. Whether he was actually there or not (his boyfriend who I was afraid of had just purchased a small home right off the main drag in Rhinebeck), I assumed he was lying and ashamed to be seen with me after I roofied myself. I didn’t write back. Then I texted my college best friend Alexis, who lived in the East Village. We both moved to New York after graduation and in the final months of senior year, we had talked about getting a place together but her cousin let her live with her in Harlem and soon after, saw each other once a quarter, if that. We were both theatre ghouls in college; she, a tried and true hag. But at one of our quickly dwindling dinner dates, she told me that through therapy, she’d decided to make cultivating more female friendships a priority. She invited me to a girls’ weekend in the Hamptons at the family home of her friend, Jess. Or was it Lindsay. I stayed for one night and then faked food poisoning and took the train back the next morning. She never asked me if I got back to the city safely, or if I was feeling better, which bothered me, even though I lied. We quietly stopped speaking soon after that. A slow burner demise. The cleanest death.

Eventually I unfollowed Alexis on all platforms and didn’t talk to her for five years until she invited me to her 30th birthday dinner. It was at Via Carota with about twenty people I had never met before, including a guy she was desperately trying to date. I was seated near the end of the table, far away from Alexis and forced to make small talk with a newly married couple who had just moved to Scarsdale. The wife drank four martinis and complained about a woman at her job who was more misogynistic than any man she’d ever worked with. The husband seemed bi and kept making eye contact with me. His wife blacked out and I would have probably tried to hit on him but I was on my best behavior with Alexis.

She made her way over to me and we talked for the last hour, drinking wine and getting wistful about the past. We ended up going to a horrible nightclub in the Meatpacking District and then to an after party at The Spectrum in East Williamsburg where we did MDMA and danced in front of the smoke machine with the radical fairies and didn’t leave till 8 am. We were inseparable again till her dad had a stroke in the fall of 2020 and she went home to Pennsylvania to help her mom take care of him. She moved back to New York in 2023 and our friendship continued whenever she wasn’t experiencing depression. She joined a hipster church in Midtown shortly after Trump’s second term began and made it her personality. I went with her to church service twice and the second time I actually started crying during the climax of the closing song by the post-rock band performing on the altar. I believed in God for two minutes and then felt stupid for being there and left without telling Alexis.

A few weeks later at sushi she revealed to me that she had been having an emotional sexting affair with her married pastor who had sleeve tattoos and a tiny nose ring until the previous week, when she stayed late to help him clean and he ate her out on his office desk. She said she’d never been happier and I snort-laughed and she asked me what was so funny and I apologized and said “Just be careful.” She got up without saying a word and left the restaurant. I texted her later apologizing and she told me sometimes she wondered if I was autistic. She and the pastor fucked for a few months until his wife found out and started telling everyone who would listen that Alexis was stalking them. Alexis stopped going to church and we resumed our friendship. She would go dark for weeks at a time, so when I texted her to meet me that night I wasn’t surprised that she turned me down. But when she added that she wanted to develop healthy connections with straight men for the first time and how that wouldn’t happen by tagging along with me to gay bars, I told her that felt like a reach. She told me I was being rude and that I would just end up ditching her when I found a guy to go home with like every other time and I told her she was weird for holding that against me and then she said it was weird that I was at a bar alone on a Friday night and I told her I had just spent a month not going out and she sent clap emojis and told me congratulations and then I told her she was being a cunt and she told me that there’s nothing sadder than an old gay who drinks too much. Then she blocked my number. I never saw her again.

Alexis also died during the flu. Her funeral was in Pittsburgh. It was better attended than I thought it would be, and I knew Alexis would be happy about that. I saw a few people from college –an evil gay named Mark who lived in my hall freshman year who was in my same social circle for all four years but never acknowledged me until our graduation weekend. He had gone bald and gotten married and had a baby through a surrogate who was currently back at the hotel with their nanny. His husband was tall and bland but nice. They lived in Society Hill in Philly and told me to come down for a weekend and stay with them. “We have lots of room,” Mark said. I told him that’d be fun and Mark gave me his number and texted me a few times after, sometimes veering into vaguely flirty territory, which I never reciprocated.

At the funeral luncheon, I made sure to find Alexis’ mom before I caught my flight back to New York. I apologized to her and her husband, who was in a wheelchair nearby, staring off with his mouth hanging open. I told her that Alexis had been a big part of my life for so long and that she helped make me who I am today. I didn’t exactly mean that, but it was kind of true, I guess. She took my hand and thanked me and said that Alexis had always felt the same about me. As we held hands, I suddenly realized that she had no idea who I was. I’d gotten to know them a little during college; they treated our friends to some dinners at the one expensive restaurant in town. We forget things when we’re sad. This woman had a lot to be sad about. But it felt less like a trauma-wrought memory blank, and more like a gracious fib. I was not someone of consequence in her daughter’s reality. I was just a random mourner. An acquaintance. I nodded and took an Uber to the airport. I got drunk on the short flight and quietly cried for Alexis and the friendship we may have never even had.

***

I got a text from Hunter, the kindly muscle twink who lives down the block. I thought about inviting him to the party. He asked if I wanted to come over. We usually always fuck except last week, when he just wanted my foot on his face while he jerked off. It took me a while but I finally came on his back. I always felt bad for him when I saw the ‘DREAM BOY’ tattoo above his right cum gutter. We drank some beers after and I listened to him talk about how he had been sleeping with this guy in a relationship and how he always found himself in these situations and wondered if something was wrong with him. Then I went to his bathroom and threw up in his sink. I’ve been throwing up more. I don’t know why.

Tonight there was no vom. The wretched Merlot went down smoothly.

Are you going to the protest, Hunter texted.

What protest? I asked

The one in Union Square. It’s a counter protest.

Countering what? The election?

Idk.

I almost wrote “Do you know anything?” but then I remembered I don’t know anything either.

I’m going to a holiday party.

Oooo, fancy.

Lol sure.

Text me later.

Ok!

I would not ask Hunter to the West Village gay party. He didn’t deserve it. He didn’t make the cut. I was nearly blacking out, so I decided to save the rest of the wine for later, did some more Adderall, brushed my teeth and headed to the subway.

There were soldiers on the Marcy subway platform, at the other end. Just three. The national guard had been deployed to break up rioting that lasted a full week after election night. There were looting and fires on Fifth Avenue, near the High Line, downtown Brooklyn. Then came the molotov explosions. Small ones. Shattering windows, glass displays. A precinct in midtown was firebombed. The president’s old address was vandalized. The news believed it was the work of a new united front. A more organized Antifa. It got more sporadic as December came. One night the Walgreens near me was being looted and I considered stealing a bunch of probiotics but I chickened out.

The soldiers tonight looked bored, pacing around. One leaned against the wall, under an ICE tip line poster, scrolling through his phone. They didn’t want to be here either. Other than them the platform was mostly empty, which surprised me. It was warm tonight. It’d been warm all month. It was like that last year, and the year before that. December was balmy now. I saw two twenty-somethings –two girls– walked up the stairs and onto the platform. One of them had a cow bell that rang as they walked. The other had a sign that said “Keep your hands off my democracy!” I rolled my eyes. That’ll show them! I imagined Hunter at the protest, seeing that sign and thinking it was clever. Everyone in New York was at the protest. Or at Hedi and Aaron’s holiday party. Ahead of me on the steel column were some missing persons flyers, flapping in the warm winter breeze.

As I walked down University Place, I could hear police sirens, cowbells, airhorns, megaphones from the protest. Helicopters. A straight couple in outfits for June walked by me with their arms around each other, smiling, laughing. They didn’t notice me.

At Hedi and Aaron’s, the rooms were packed and hot. I was already sweating ten minutes in. We were all dressed like it wasn’t 73 degrees outside. We could pretend. The music was too loud. They had food, but it was anorexic food. Gay food. I was able to get a martini, and squeezed through the crowd of mostly men – some thin women – all white. I made my way towards the back, where I figured Hedi was receiving guests. I couldn’t see him. Aaron was in the middle of a conversation with two people when he looked up at me. I waved and he flicked his head and continued whatever important thing he was explaining. Fucker. A few of Hedi’s friends acknowledged. One of them, Brennan, who was somehow related to Grace Kelly, stopped me to ask if I had any Molly. His eyes were already saucers, and I told him no. He nodded, looking off, then back at me with complete conviction.

“You’re an artist, right?” Brennan asked.

“No,” I said.

“Oh,” he said. “Why did I think you were a painter?”

I shrugged and smiled.

“But you do something creative,” he said.

He was not giving up.

“I don’t,” I said. “I don’t do anything.”

He stared at me, doubting. Then moved on without saying goodbye.

I kept pressing further inside. I knew there was a terrace where I could post up. I could smoke out there and wait for people to talk to me. I still couldn’t see Hedi anywhere. I wondered if I should have invited Hunter, after all. Maybe I could still text him. He might be at the protest. That’s close. What everyone wants to do after protesting fascism is go to a holiday party. I pulled my phone out as I pushed by a trio of tall men and texted Hunter.

Wanna come to this party?

I watched the message begin to send, then halt. I put it back in my pocket and thought about Alexis. She would thrive here. Hedi never met her but she would charm him. She charmed everyone. She’d complain the whole time that there were no straight men here but she’d love it anyway. We’d fly back to Brooklyn in a cab; Alexis only took cabs. Never Uber or Lyft. We’d go back to my place and rip some coke or Ketamine or whatever I had in my Chernobyl apartment and go dancing at a warehouse and go back to my place if I didn’t go home with someone and smoke cigs out my bedroom window till the sun came up and pass out in my bed and then wake up and go to some brunch with women she was trying to be friends with where I’d proceed to get drunk again and go full faggot jester and make it all about me and then later she would text me to tell me that I require too much attention and that she thinks I’m an alcoholic. I suddenly missed her so much that I felt sick. I found another bar and ordered two martinis and took them to the bathroom. After I pissed I downed one fast, and looked at myself in the mirror; gin-spittle hanging off my mouth. My face was flush and looked like a moon. The hair around my temples was wet with sweat. I waited a moment before taking a big sip of the other martini.

Back in the party, the music felt painful now. My teeth hurt. I wondered if it was the Adderall. I scanned the room again and finally saw Hedi. He was flanked by five people and had his hand on one guy’s shoulder, active-listening with a big smile. He was the best active-listener. He wore a cashmere sweater and had a little facial hair, which I’d never seen on him before. It wasn’t scraggly though. It was tasteful. Everything about him was tasteful. He wasn’t sweating; he never did. He started laughing –head back, eyes closed laughing. When he opened again, I thought he was looking at me and I waved hard. Too hard, because I accidentally hit the back of the head of a girl standing next to me. She flinched and turned around, glaring at me. The two gays she was with looked at me with disgust. I felt hot again and cupped my mouth.

“Oh my god,” I said. “I’m so sorry,”

“It’s fine,” she said flatly and moved away from me, behind her gays. Her shield.

“It’s so crowded in here,” I said to them.

One of them said nothing and continued talking to my victim; the other looked at me, his face brightening

“You were Hedi’s roommate,” he said.

“Yeah!” I said, too-loud; too-grateful.

I leaned into him and stuck my hand out.

“I’m Andy,” I said.

He took my hand.

“I know,” he said. “I’m Garrett. We met at Le Bain that day.”

Garrett tried to be casual, but there was a flicker of knowing in his eyes, not enough to be rude, but enough to remind me that he knew I was a disgusting slop-pig. I felt nauseous again. I decided to go full Pagliacci. Pasta clown.

“Don’t do GHB, kids!” I said with a shrug and nervous chuckle.

“Very true,” he said, forcing a chuckle. “Good to see you.”

He turned back to his gay and girl.

“Have you said Hedi?” I asked.

They looked at me.

“Yeah,” Garrett said, searching around. “I think he’s in the front somewhere.”

As soon as I was out of Garrett’s sight, I let myself be consumed by the crowd again before I could hear him talk about me, or worse, not mention me at all. I had to find Hedi. I needed to be received by him. I was here to pay my respects. See him now, anointed as a prince. This wasn’t a holiday party. It was a coronation.

The party had grown, I was in the middle of the room, in a riptide of faggotry. I looked towards the French doors to the terrace and planned my cigarette refuge. I finished the rest of my third martini and began pushing towards the doors.

The air outside, still sickly warm, felt cold in comparison to the party. It was shocking. A disinfectant. There were about five guests out there, huddled together, passing a joint around. One of them did a few bumps of K. I raised my hand and said “Hi,” as I settled to my spot in the corner of the deck.

“Hello,” the one doing K said.

As soon as I was smoking I felt a little better. I looked up towards the sky and saw the few visible stars above the city. I heard more sirens in the distance. And checked my phone again. The text from Hunter had officially failed to send. I had zero service. I looked over to the others on the deck, my heart racing and cleared my throat

“Hey,” I said; they turned. “Do you have service?”

A few checked their phones.

“No,” one of them said.

“Me neither,” another.

“I do,” one guy with the joint in his hand said. “But I use Starlink.”

He smiled at me and took a drag. They went back to talking again.

“Maybe service is wonky because of the protest,” I said.

They turned back again.

“What protest?” The K Gay asked.

“The one in Union Square,” I said, panicked."

They looked at one another, shaking their heads.

“I didn't know about that,” the Joint Gay said.

“Election protest,” I said, exhaling smoke. “I heard police started jamming cell service so people can’t post pics.”

One of them widened their eyes at another and turned away from me. The Weed Gay continued to stare, amused.

“Are you a journalist?” He asked.

A chortle from one or two of them, with their backs to me, ripped through the silence.

“No,” I said, quietly.

“You’re just like… breaking news back here,” he added.

The others giggled. I cracked a smile and put my hands up like, Guilty! The jester strikes again. They carried on their iconic conversation.

“It’s still so crazy to me that Anderson Cooper is a top,” I said, almost thinking aloud; they stopped, and looked at each other.

“Huh?” The Joint Gay said.

I turned red again.

“Oh, no, I just read that somewhere,” I said.

They were all looking at me now.

“You’d think he was a –well, I don’t know,” I said. “Just crazy.”

“He’s my friend,” one gay, who’d been silent the entire time, suddenly said. I waited for him to smile. Laugh. He didn’t.

“Sorry,” I said, my throat closing up. “I was just kidding.”

The Ketamine gay suddenly stumbled toward me and sat down on the ground, his back against the ledge. He was clearly in a k-hole. He ran his fingers through his hair and looked up at me and put out his hand.

“You’re like, freaking me out,” he said, half-laughing.

Everyone else broke out into full, stoned laughter. I smiled and nodded, seeing my cue to leave. I hurried to the door and as I opened it, I could have sworn I heard someone ask, “Who was that fat guy?”

It was time to go. I imagined myself macheteing bamboo as I parted through guests, doing a final lap around the condo to see if I could find Hedi. I wondered if he was avoiding me, if he’d seen me earlier when I wasn’t looking and told Aaron to let him know whenever I was close by. He invited me to show me what I’d never have. What I would never be. But he was wrong. I was just like him and everyone else here. I was the same. We were the same. We were glorious. This time next year, we may all be gone. But for now we were all West Village gays. We were mighty and perfect and tasteful. I grabbed a glass of red wine and shot it back. I looked at my phone and I saw text from Hunter.

I’m at another party! I didn’t go to the protest :/

Fuck yourself, I texted.

???? Hunter wrote back.

“Andy,” Aaron said.

I looked up and saw him standing there in a tight t-shirt. A layer had been peeled off. He was sweaty, which made me happy.

“Hey!” I said, and hugged him; he gave me a muted embrace, patting me on the back.

We stood there for a moment and he looked at me, like he was reading through an affidavit.

“Merry Christmas,” I said.

“You too,” he said.

We were silent for a moment.

“I don’t celebrate Christmas,” he said.

“Right,” I said.

“But, it’s all the same,” he laughed.

“Well, you know in these times,” I said, for some reason'; Aaron nodded.

“Totally,” he said

I felt hot again. Dizzy now.

“Congrats on the engagement,” I said.

“Thank you,” he said. “We’re so excited.”

“The engagement party looked really nice,” I said.

“It was super last minute,” Aaron said. “Like, truly it all came together without us even having an input,” he said.

“Aaron, don’t worry,” I said, putting my hand on his. “I don’t need to be invited to everything.”

I looked into his eyes as deeply as I could. Aaron smiled, slightly uncomfortable, and subtly pulled his hand away from my sweaty claw.

“Well, we were really hoping you’d come tonight,” he said. “So, I’m glad you did.”

“Me too,” I said. “And like, all this deporting stuff.”

Aaron looked at me, waiting.

“It’s scary,” I said. “You guys gotta be safe, you know?”

I felt myself smiling, strangely.

“Yep,” Aaron said.

He changed gears, brightening up.

“Hedi was looking for you,” Aaron said.

“Oh really?” I asked. ‘I’m actually leaving”

“You should stay!” Aaron said.

“I’m meeting this guy I’m sort of seeing,” I said.

“Tell him to come here,” Aaron said.

“Well, I’m not actually seeing him,” I said. “He’s like, a dumb little bottom.”

“OK,” Aaron said, in a way that felt pitying. I’ll get Hedi before you go,” he said,.

He placed his hand on my shoulder, turning around.

“Really,” I said, swallowing upchuck. “It’s fine –”

Aaron waved at Hedi, who was across the room this time.

“Andy’s here,” he said.

Hedi lit up, putting a “Hold on” finger up at the guy he was chatting with; he started making his way over.

I knew I was going to throw up, right there, right now. It was only seconds away. So when Hedi approached me and extended his arms, it wasn’t a surprise that when I closed my eyes and opened them a moment later, Hedi’s cashmere sweater — and part of his neck — were suddenly covered in my vomit.

***

Uber was down, so Aaron called me a cab after lending me one of his shirts to wear home. The traffic was standstill on the cab ride home. I could barely keep my eyes open. We were on Delancey heading to the Williamsburg Bridge.

“Can you go around?” I whined.

“There’s a protest,” the driver said.

“Take another bridge, then,” I said.

“Bridges are closed,” he said.

Then I puked again, all over Aaron’s fresh shirt, all over the black leather seats.

“Fuck!” The driver yelled, turning around. “Window!”

I slumped over to the window and hurled some more.

“Get out!” the driver said.

I told him to fuck himself. That I was paying him and he should shut the fuck up.

“You should be lucky you still have a job,” I said.

Then I got out of the cab and into the street. He opened the door of his car and yelled at me to pay him, so I turned around and threw a wad of ones at him. I made my way to the bridge. Other people had left their Ubers and Cabs to cross it. The subway, too. All downtown lines were closed. I received some grimaces from my appearance but I just kept my head down and tried to sober up, at least until I could get home to get drunk again.

I’d only walked the Williamsburg Bridge twice before, in the whole time I lived in this godforsaken city. Once when the restaurant I used to work at lost its generator during the power outage after Hurricane Sandy and they told us all to go home. Another time was with Thomas actually, after we fucked once. I walked him from Brooklyn over to the Delancey Stop and kissed him in front of the McDonalds. Some teenagers heckled us. Thomas smiled and then walked off without saying goodbye. I never did shit in New York. I’d never even been to the Met.

A few people in front of me, holding protest signs, looked down at their phones. There was a shooting at the protest. I looked out at the lights of Manhattan; helicopters circling where Union Square was.

“Why does it smell like throw up?” Someone in front of me asked.

I made it over the Bridge and looked up at a giant billboard with the ICE tip line at the start of Broadway. Uber and Lyft were down. So I stumbled the rest of the way home. I thought about the cab driver and how rude I was to him. I didn’t feel bad about it. I showered when I got home, ordered DoorDash, and gave the driver one star because he had beautiful teeth and called me “Buddy.” I didn’t feel bad about that, either.

Around midnight, when I finished the other half of the wine, I walked over to the gas station down the street and grabbed my four Sapporo tall boys from the mini-mart fridge; a few foot-long Slim Jims and two bags of TGIFridays potato chips. The store’s card reader wasn’t working so the cashier asked if I could pay with cash. I went to the back of the store with a $4 charge, and when it didn’t work I kicked the machine hard until the cashier yelled at me to stop. I threw the Slim Jims and chip bags at the bullet-proof partition glass around the counter and said, “Fix your fucking shit” and took the beers without paying. The cashier was too startled to say no. I didn’t feel bad about that.

When it was a little past 3 am, and I’d drunk all four tall boys and was rewatching that final scene of Gladiator on YouTube, I started to cry. My laptop that was resting on my stomach shook as I wept. I hit the space key on my laptop to pause the video and thought about Hedi and Aaron and the rest of the West Village gays. I thought about Hedi’s face, looking at the yellow and brown puke on him, dripping down to the floor; the gasps and faces of guests staring at me, covering their eyes, filming on their phones; Aaron gripping my arm to push me aside, then keeping me at an arm’s-length from Hedi, as he stroked Hedi’s face and asked if he was OK; Hedi, nodding and trying to maintain his grace, repeating “It’s OK, it’s OK.” Looking at me and saying, “You’re okay.” Then leading me into the bathroom to run the shower over my head and neck, to clean me off. He cleaned me off before he cleaned myself off. Hedi, my eternal roommate, the only friend I ever had besides Alexis.

What did it matter that they both left me? I knew it wasn’t personal. They did it for themselves. They wanted to change, to meet new people, see new worlds. Better worlds. I may never be better but I am consistent. I am consistent in my wretchedness. Being consistent, in whatever way you are consistent, is a beautiful thing. Being consistent is brave. I am brave.

I looked up the White House Department of Homeland Security’s ICE tip line, and realized I actually remembered the number. That same number that was everywhere, all around us. I texted the tip line suggesting to look into Hedi’s green card status. I added a photo of him off Google and included his work and home address. I slowly typed, making sure to correct the numerous typos. I held my phone up – my hand shaking – and reread it. I thought for a moment, then added “But he’s a good person,” at the end. When it was all done and ready, I sent it off and put my phone down. I didn’t feel bad about it. I stared at the frozen laptop screen.

In a few minutes I will pass out and dream of nothing and wake up to live another brave and beautiful day.

Now, in her early 40s, Mackenzie was wearing contacts for the first time. But they always left her feeling vulnerable. Once, because of a mix-up at the company in Utah where she ordered them from, Mackenzie was shipped impossibly blue colored contacts. It was too expensive to have new ones overnighted, so she was forced to wear them for a week while the kind Mormons at the contact company sorted through their mess. Her daughter Ellie cried when she first saw Mackenzie in them. Colin didn’t notice for an entire day. Still, she refused to wear glasses of any kind. Glasses were weak. At school drop-off, Mackenzie averted her gaze from the other parents. Fayral, whose son was in Ellie’s class, was the only one who acknowledged Mackenzie’s new eye color.

“They’re kind of Marilyn Manson,” she told Mackenzie. “I listened to him in high school, before he got canceled, obviously.”

Fayral also told Mackenzie about the Signal app, an unregulated messaging service which Mackenzie remembered hearing about when the White House tried unsuccessfully to have it banned. Fayral’s parents, both Pakistani nationals, were struggling to naturalize. When it became clear that the president was seeking a third term, and more and more likely that the Supreme Court would allow him to, Fayral’s family began communicating solely on Signal.

“Even if he doesn’t win, I still might use it going forward,” Fayral added.

Mackenzie’s fixation on the apocalypse wasn’t born out of election fears. She didn’t really care about that, anymore. Sure, she thought the president was dangerous and annoying, but she didn’t vote in 2024, and wasn’t planning to this time around, either. Mackenzie’s focus was in decades. She began reading books about climate change and civil war, sometimes two in a week. How weather affects politics.

“Heat makes people crazy,” she told her mom once when her parents were over for dinner; Colin and her dad watched a Phillies game in the next room while Ellie drew.

“Uprisings happen during heat waves,” Mackenzie added.

“Why are you telling me this?” her mom asked.

She was at the sink, cleaning food into the disposal.

“It’s all so dark,” she added.

“She’s all about dark right now,” Colin said from the other room.

Mackenzie stole a glare at Colin from the kitchen. He shrugged playfully.

“Don’t think about these things too much,” her mother said. “It’ll drive you crazy.”

Mackenzie signed up for a night class on meteorology at community college. She attended a few Zoom meetings for an environmental group but left after one meeting was spent teaching people how to chain themselves to trees. It freaked Mackenzie out. She regretted sharing her email. Regardless of any weirdness, she wanted to be the best mom she could be during the coming collapse. Her daughter Ellie was almost 8 and mostly sweet. But she was a wimp. Mackenzie knew this. It annoyed her as much as it made her want to protect Ellie that much more. Mackenzie would kill for Ellie, die for her. But her daughter was tedious. She did well in school, but a first grade teacher’s aide told Mackenzie and Colin that Ellie "advertised her victimhood” in a way that made the aide worry. She got teased, and she tattled, which made the teasing worse. She didn’t like sports, even though Mackenzie and Colin had her do town basketball in the winter and swim team in the summer. The basketball games were held in the middle school gymnasium on Saturday afternoons. Ellie complained about them being too loud. One time she got elbowed in the arm and shrieked so intensely that the game had to be stopped for ten minutes while Mackenzie and Colin calmed her down. There were a few occasions where Ellie was found hiding in the winter coat pile in the corner of the gym, contorting her body to match the jacket patterns – Mackenzie was at least impressed by the inventive camouflage. The last time Ellie pulled this move, she was almost immediately spotted by a few other kids after her legs could be seen sticking out of the pile. There weren’t as many coats in the winter anymore; people didn’t need them.

The pool was always too cold for Ellie, even when the heat during the central Pennsylvanian summers broke records every week. Her lips turned purple and she sat on the wall between practice sets, shivering. She was always too cold, always too agitated. They had her tested for autism, and then ADHD. Ellie had neither. A therapist in Philadelphia said Ellie exhibited signs of PTSD.

“PTSD from what?” Mackenzie asked, genuinely surprised.

Ellie had a nice life. They weren’t wealthy, or even well off, but Mackenzie and Colin had decent jobs and lived in a decent house, in a decent town. Decent cars. Decent neighbors. They weren’t drunks –Mackenzie had cut out all alcohol during her apocalypse molting, but even before then, she barely drank. They never fought in front of Ellie, and in the last few years, never fought in private either.

“She was born in 2020,” the therapist said. ‘

‘Yes, I fucking know, you dumb bitch,’ Mackenzie thought.

“So she grew up during Covid,” the therapist continued. “The Flu of ‘25.”

Ellie had already read about this. They rushed into naming them ‘the COVID generation, with the horrors of 2025 just five years away. The flu hit harder in the cities, of course. Mackenzie’s brother Douglas and his boyfriend Fred lived in New York. She suggested they come out to Pennsylvania and wait it out. Colin seemed annoyed, even angry, at the suggestion, which alarmed Mackenzie. He and Douglas always got along, and Fred and Colin played online poker together sometimes.

“Ellie’s confused enough,” Colin said. “It’s a lot of effort to explain that to a kid.”

He didn’t elaborate on what “that” meant. Mackenzie didn’t ask him to.

It didn’t matter anyway, because soon New York was sealed off— not that quarantining made a difference. Everyone who died was dead in three weeks. It burned out as quickly as it arrived. Douglas and Fred made it through, and both Mackenzie and Colin’s parents. But some mom-friends of Mackenzie’s were lost. Four children in Ellie’s class. Some neighbors. The mayor. There was a rumor that an entire Amish community got wiped out. Every last person. It was never confirmed.

Mackenzie saw photos of bodies being burned in fields on the outskirts of Lancaster, a few miles away. They could smell it from inside their house. Colin ordered Ellie an air purifier, which Mackenzie felt self-conscious about not having already. The air was already shot to Hell. Flaming pyres of the dead, lining Pennsylvanian fields like druid bonfires at harvest were just a garnish. Maybe the pain was just in Ellie’s bones — baked into the marrow. She was the last of our species, inheriting a planet of pain without any say. Humanity’s janitors, mopping the ruined earth as best they can when the rest of us have gone, locking up behind them and falling into the night.

She planned to buy land in Michigan. The Great Lakes were narrowed down as the safest place for climate refuge. Fresh water would absolutely be fought over in America, possibly in her and Colin’s lifetimes. She needed to fortify them now. Mackenzie watched YouTube tutorials about gardening, planting crops. She started growing things around their house. Tomato, oregano. She took a beekeeping class. She took a class on woodworking. She built a shed in their backyard. Colin helped a little but mostly gave her space. At least that’s what he told her. He wanted her to feel autonomy working with her hands. Mackenzie said nothing but smiled. What did Colin ever build? When he wasn’t working –a remote HR job for Sheetz corporate –he was playing Fornite. He was a micro-celebrity on Twitch. His side-gig. They were able to afford theater camp for Ellie with Twitch. After an internal memo leaked, the company was rumored to be replacing a third of their departments with AI within two years. Rather than make himself indispensable, Colin Twitched. He planned to make it his main source of revenue. Mackenzie watched some streams when Colin started making a name for himself. He was funny, silly, and charming. Not creepy, which she was relieved about. She held her breath and searched his name on Reddit, Twitter. Mostly good things. Any critique was leveled at his skill. Nothing personality-wise. Mackenzie already had a running list for that. Nightly, after Ellie was asleep, she could hear Colin letting out a single “Whoop!” or a “Fuuuuuuuck,” every so often. Communicating with his secret friends in his little headset.

It wasn’t the gaming that was rendering Colin quasi-obsolete. It was just Colin. The gaming didn’t help, of course. Like the time Mackenzie took Ellie to see the newest Trolls movie at the Regal Manor in Millersville. Colin had been the one to suggest the family outing, and asked Mackenzie to grab tickets for deluxe seating before they undoubtedly sold out. At the last minute, he bailed. He had to sub in for one of his Fortnite comrades for a livestream. He promised her it’d be worthwhile, as the friend he was covering for (a sophomore in college who told Colin he was grey-rocking his parents) promised to split the winnings 50/50.

“Solid deal, bro” Mackenzie said.

“This is serious,” Colin replied.

“You’re right,” Mackenzie said. “Sorry.”

During Trolls, a teenager set off a firecracker while his friend filmed it for TikTok. Naturally, everyone else, including Mackenzie, assumed a mass shooting was commencing. A stampede ensued and a small fire broke out. Mackenzie’s glasses fell off and were crushed when she pulled Ellie, who went fully limp, over the seats in front of them. She had to feel her way out in the blurry dark; crouching down for cover from the squall of bullets she expected, all while holding a screaming Ellie to her chest. A dozen people were injured in the panic. One person –an elderly woman– had a heart attack and died. Colin Ubered to the theater parking lot, which had been turned into a makeshift ER, and drove them home. He apologized profusely for not being there. Later when they were in bed – Ellie sleeping between them – he turned to face Mackenzie.

“Good news is, I made $200 tonight,” he said, smiling.

She suddenly pictured a satellite crashing through their ceiling and smushing Colin into a bloody blob.

Instead, she just said, “That’s amazing.”

The next morning, she decided she would get Lasik. She’d protected Ellie at the theatre, but what happens when an actual shooter shows up? She started trawling through subreddits about the procedure. One commenter, a woman from Washington state, said she got Lasik after watching too many zombie movies over the two pandemics. Mackenzie messaged her, which led her back to Signal. The woman suggested she join a doomsday prep group chat she was in. 500 members.

There were a few ground rules in the chat. No last names, and no selfies. No giveaway information about your real life. You have to contribute to the discourse if you want to stay in it. After a week of mostly watching the chat at work, before bed, or before Ellie woke up in the morning, Mackenzie began chiming in. She posted photos of her meals. A video of the erg machine at the gym. The shed she built. Bees. People liked her. They thought she was funny. Smart, even. They shared links to articles about collapsing ice shelves. Articles about heat bursts, which were becoming more common. Mackenzie first read about heat bursts after a California couple, their baby and dog were killed almost instantly in the Sierra Mountains, when the temperature suddenly surged to 110 degrees. That would never happen to her family. Colin and Ellie wouldn’t die in an atmospheric oven or in a home invasion when more resources ran out and roving packs of scavengers descended on the suburbs.

She signed up for a tactical training class. Colin went with her twice, but twisted his ankle the second time. He stopped going. Mackenzie learned to shoot after rolling in a somersault on the ground. She wasn’t the best in the class, but the instructor –a former Marine –told Mackenzie she had grit. She was formidable.

She was an athlete as a kid, and she rowed in high school and college. She was very good, but not excellent. You could always depend on her, though. She would pull through. Her innate competence sometimes made her wonder if she was actually a lesbian. Other people thought she was –they had conversations about it behind her back. The other rower girls at Penn State, some gay themselves, were waiting for Mackenzie to join the club. She had always been tall and powerful, oblong-shaped. Broad. After an indoor volleyball game when she was 13, her grandfather told her she was a “big, strong girl” while patting her back, which made her want to kill herself. But soon, she leaned into Big Strong Girl. She made it her thing. Her junior year, she let a girl in her 4-boat eat her out in the hotel during an away race. She enjoyed it, but ultimately, and often to her own detriment, she knew she preferred men. She lost her virginity to a guy on the men’s team. He came out only a month into his freshman year at Princeton. Mackenzie didn’t sleep with many people in college –maybe once a semester. She didn’t date anyone. But she was well-liked. Happy. Later, Colin, who played ultimate frisbee at Penn State, introduced himself to Mackenzie during a barbecue their senior year. They stayed in touch after graduation. He was raised in upstate New York and was one inch shorter than Mackenzie. He was nice to her. They did anal twice in the first year they dated. They still had sex post-Ellie, but it started to feel mechanical. At first it bothered her. She tried talking about it with her tele-health nurse practitioner who prescribed her Wellbutrin. She listened to Mackenzie vent for about ten minutes before reminding her that she’s not a therapist. It’s not that the sex was bad, she just felt like Colin was punching in. One time she prepared herself for a whole day by not eating and told Colin she wanted to try anal again. He seemed more excited than he had in a few years, but couldn’t stay hard.

A year or so after COVID, Mackenzie used Colin’s laptop while he was out getting Starbucks to print something and found pegging porn on his desktop. She watched it for about ten minutes. A muscular man bent over on a desk, getting his ass split open by a hot blonde wearing a strap-on. Mackenzie drove to a sex store and bought a big, red strap-on. She wore it under her pants for an entire day, hoping Colin would notice. He didn’t. One night later that week after she put Ellie down to bed, and Colin was gaming, Mackenzie put the strap-on into a plastic grocery bag and drove to a parking lot behind an insurance company down the road. She threw it into the woods.

She wasn’t thinking about Colin or Twitch or strap-ons when she was on Signal. The people on Signal understood her. A side-chat broke off from the main. 20 people, including Mackenzie. Most of the people were from the US. A few from Canada, and two from Latin America. Politics were varied, but most of the chatters were progressive. Some had voted for the president and were regretful. Others stayed quiet on the matter. No one dared ask them. There were farmers in Oklahoma, queers from Oregon, a trans woman in Florida. Regardless of differences, everyone was kind, supportive and afraid. Afraid of weather. A run on banks. More plagues. Rioting. Tyranny. Civil war. It was coming. It was here. They also shared music, tips for meditation, vented about their families, their relationships. Even what TV shows and movies they were watching; which celebs they were keeping an eye on. One person – a gay man who’d moved from D.C. to Vermont with his husband during COVID – was convinced Ariana Grande was working for the CIA. It was mostly funny, but once in a while he presented evidence that felt too convincing for Mackenzie and she had to disengage from the chat for the rest of the day.

She signed herself and Colin up for a tactical training class. Her goal was to learn to aim and fire a gun after doing a somersault. Colin seemed almost angry that Mackenzie signed them up without telling him. He didn’t understand why she was taking such strides to change herself.

“Are you not into me like this?” She asked.

“It’s not that,” he said. “It’s just random.”

She wasn’t surprised he reacted like this. Colin’s relationship with his physical and mental health was less than stellar. He went to a few couples’ counseling sessions with Mackenzie before stopping. According to Colin, therapy felt like being at Confession as a child. He’d gained a little weight over the lockdown of ‘25 –more weight than he did during COVID. He went on Ozempic that he ordered without telling Mackenzie, and only came clean when he’d lost noticeable weight. He stopped eating full meals, surviving solely on Sour Patch Kids, Red Bull, and Frosted Mini Wheats. Gradually, his weight loss plateaued, and his doctor told him his lifestyle, including his lack of sleep, would slow down the medication’s benefits. He stopped taking it right after that.

Colin did two tactical classes with Mackenzie, but sprained his ankle at the very start of the third and never went again. The one thing they could agree on, though, was guns. They went to the shooting range– Colin in an orthopedic boot– and purchased a glock and a rifle together at a gun store the manager of the range suggested. Colin was a good shot.

‘He better fucking be after all that Fornite,’ Mackenzie thought.

She was fine. Getting better but nothing to write home about. She could tell Colin enjoyed that she wasn’t as good. Whenever they came back from the shooting range, he’d be horny and want to fuck.

Mackenzie posted about Colin on the Signal chat, referring to him only as “the husband.”

I love him, she wrote. But he’s kind of a flop.

She added that she was worried their paths were deviating too greatly.

He’s stuck in his beta shadow, a poster named Lindsey wrote.

Men are very delicate, Jim, the gay man in Vermont, wrote.

Men are not delicate, Lloyd, possibly the most frequent poster in the group wrote. Society is.

Spoken like a true man, Marta replied.

After a few others piped in to offer advice, Mackenzie received a request to chat one-on-one by Terence, whose posts –often bleakly funny memes– she always appreciated. She was surprised when she received the request. She was eating lunch in her car at work, as she often did. She opened the message and saw a link to a YouTube video. A Neil Young song.

Whenever I’m confused, I listen to Neil Young, he wrote.

Mackenzie’s heart raced. She remembered one of her rowing coaches –a quiet, handsome man who never married and followed Phish on tour – played Neil Young sometimes during boathouse workouts. He’d walk around and stare out at the river, reflective, mournful, thinking back to something. Some men can only be pensive if there are harmonicas present.

But when Mackenzie listened to Neil Young that day, she felt grateful to be alive. She felt like doing donuts in the office parking lot. They began sending songs to each other, and eventually Terence made a playlist that they could each add songs. Terence lived in Georgia, just outside Atlanta, and also had a long commute to work. He was vague about what he did but from what Mackenzie gathered, it was something to do with the military. Which made the increasing urgency in his posting that much more thrilling to Mackenzie. Less memes, more dread. More intel. He was a source on the inside. A mole. He was risking so much. Sometimes they would start their playlist at the same time at the top of their drives and listen through. Listening together, half-a-day apart, driving down freeways and past forests charred by controlled burns, farms destroyed by fungus; bought by Amazon or China. Terence was about ten years older and his wife had died of cancer the year before.

The vaccine, he wrote.

They weren’t able to have kids, which Terence was relieved about at the time. But now he desperately wished that he had one to pour himself into in the fog of grief. Even now, when the idea of bringing a child into this world felt irresponsible. Mackenzie told him about Ellie. How smart she was, but also how brittle. Terence pushed Mackenzie to keep arming herself up through exercise, learning to build and shoot; he was confident it would rub off on Ellie, even if it was unconscious.

She’ll see her mama turning herself into a weapon, Terence wrote, adding a smiley face.

Mackenzie blushed.

Terence said he was a fitness freak. He worked out every day and did Tough Mudders every few months. He had run multiple marathons and mastered the Wim Hof Method. He encouraged Mackenzie to try it, and sent links to Andrew Huberman podcast episodes where he talked about Wim Hof and other breathing methods. Mackenzie asked Colin to try it with her. He did and actually enjoyed it. For two weeks, they did it nightly after Ellie went to sleep, in the living room. After one session, they had sex right on the carpet for the first time in months. They both came at the same time. Mackenzie had to cover Colin’s mouth when he started moaning too loud. She kept her hand on his mouth and he seemed to enjoy it, he looked at her with tranquilized eyes. Subdued. Tamed. She suddenly imagined Terence, or what she thought Terence looked like. Bearded, salt and pepper, bright eyes and unbraced teeth. Manly teeth. Manly face. A voice with depth that shot into her stomach. She closed her eyes and came harder than she had in years. Colin flopped off her and pulled his gym shorts back up. They both lay, panting and staring up. Mackenzie felt Colin’s cum leaking down her thigh and she imagined getting pregnant with Terence’s baby. Colin stopped doing Wim Hof after that night.

Terence started fixating on Mackenzie’s waning vision (he had 20/20) after she told him about the movie theater incident. He told her she needed to consider the risk of being visually impaired in a future without the ability to order contacts in bulk.

She didn’t tell him that she was already planning on getting Lasik. Instead, she thanked him for such a great suggestion.

You, not your husband, are going to be the main defense for your family, Terence wrote. You need your eyes as much as you need your gun.

She noticed Terence implying that Colin was miscellaneous more and more. Terence felt Colin was deadweight. At first it made her uncomfortable but then she enjoyed it. It made her work out even harder, pushing tires, swimming laps at the YMCA; she would bear her teeth and think about her and Ellie protecting their Michigan compound from looters while Colin hid inside or Twitched. Twitch will probably survive the apocalypse. Gamers always find a way.

About a month before the election, her brother Douglas sent her a screenshot of a message Colin sent Fred in one of the now rare online poker games they played. Fred and Colin got into an argument and Colin called him a “big whiny queen.”

When Mackenzie confronted Colin about it, he was fairly remorseless.

“My friends and I rib each other constantly,” Colin said.

‘ What friends?’ Mackenzie thought.

Colin added that he was tired of having to be extra sensitive just because her brother is gay.

“Too bad,” Mackenzie said. “It makes my life easier.”

Colin ended up calling Fred and Douglas individually to apologize. Douglas told Mackenize he was convinced Colin was voting for the president’s third term. She tried to tell him otherwise, but he didn’t believe her. He also told her if she didn’t vote again she was actively voting against Ellie’s future.

“You’re not a parent,” Mackenzie said. “You have no idea how much I am focusing on her future.”

“Pointing out that I’m not a parent feels loaded,” Douglas said.

“Not everything is an attack on gays!” Mackenzie yelled.

“You and your husband need to get out of Pennsylvania more,” he said before hanging up.

They didn’t talk for a week. Just more divisiveness, Terence wrote later, after Mackenzie told him the story. It doesn’t matter which side, they’re priming us to want each other dead. I’ve never seen it this bad. Everyone I work with agrees.

In September, Terence purchased a cabin in the Great Smoky Mountains in North Carolina. He said he was beginning to dig out a well for a water tank. Mackenzie felt so far behind. Other people in the Prepper chat had begun purchasing land, too. One of the Canadians had to start over from scratch after the homestead they’d made in Alberta burned down during the wild fires raging there. Everything was ramping up. The election was closing in. There were protests, riots. The president was speaking at a rally and shot (and survived) for the second time.

The accelerationists are upping the ante, Terence wrote to her. There’s not a lot of time.

She couldn’t argue that. A nameless resistance group had begun setting off car bombs around D.C, which spread into other cities: Chicago, Los Angeles. A New York Times article called them “America’s Troubles.” Mackenzie started worrying about Ellie more than she ever had.

A few weeks after Labor Day, an 8th grader was caught attempting to stab a classmate with a knife he stole from the cafeteria. He told police his best friend convinced him too, but that best friend turned out to be a therapeutic AI chatbot lazy parents used to get through to their lonely sons. It didn’t say if the boy was a gamer, but she assumed he was, perhaps unfairly. Mackenzie started to have anxiety whenever she left Ellie with Colin, which made her feel sick. Colin loved their daughter. He was a better dad than husband. Mackenzie started to obsess, imagining conversations Colin was having with a peg-enthusiast AI while Ellie choked on a snack in the other room while watching TV, or wandered outside and disappeared into the late afternoon. Terence didn’t help.

Colin is distracted, he wrote. You need to lock in.

Mackenzie started reading about homeschooling; Colin noticed her Kindle open one night and asked her about it. She told him she was curious.

“I don’t want Ellie to be a weird homeschool kid,” Colin said.

“She’s already a weird in-school kid,” Mackenzie said.

Colin told her she was being mean.

“What is all this about?” He asked.

Mackenzie didn’t answer. If Ellie was going to survive the future, she needed to be mean. Relentless. Mackenzie started going on evening walks with Ellie when it was still warm enough. They’d walk down the street, along the sidewalk of their development, as the street lamps turned on, blanching out the deep reds and blues stretching over Pennsylvania; the days becoming shorter than the nights, once more. Ellie cried a few times, telling Mackenzie she was cold. When she whined, they ran for 20 seconds. Along with her exercise, Mackenzie logged her sleep. She charted it and always reported to Terence, who she now checked in with before bed and in the morning, when she rose in the darkness to go for a jog;

Awake, she’d write.

Welcome to another day, he’d write back.

Terence was always up before her. Maybe for hours. Maybe he never slept. He didn’t need sleep. He told Mackenzie he was making progress on the Appalachia apocalypse-cabin. She asked for photos of it and he said he’d made a promise to himself to leave no trace of it on his device, even through Signal. She still didn’t know what he looked like; she tried Googling him a few times, with the few clues he gave her. Nothing. She had to accept Terence may not even be his real name. And that was OK. That was efficient. One night, he seemed drunk, which surprised Mackenzie, because he told her he didn’t drink. He wrote a maze-like screed about how he planned to avoid taxes in the future.

Our roads are cracking, he wrote. Our farms are being bought up by billionaires and China and Saudi. We’re paying taxes to blow up children and set Russian teenagers on fire with thermite drones. I’m tired of paying for off-shore concentration camps.

He was going off grid soon. Mackenzie could feel it. She marveled, but she didn’t want to ask him. She was afraid of what he’d say. She was afraid of losing him. He pushed her to make an ophthalmologist appointment in the summer. The doctor was a nice woman in her 30s who confirmed that Mackenzie was a candidate for Lasik. She also confirmed that Mackenzie was one of many seeking to improve their eyes before the world ended.

“It’s very common,” the doctor said. “Especially since 2020.”

Mackenzie felt defensive. She didn’t want to be common. She almost wanted to ask Terence to tell the doctor that she wasn’t common. But she just smiled.

“Great minds,” she said.

Soon, Mackenzie met with the recommended eye surgeon. The procedure was expensive but she signed up for a manageable payment plan. They determined the soonest procedure would be on Election Day. The timing felt cosmic. Terence said as much.

If this wasn’t a sign, he wrote. I’ll eat my hat if that guy doesn’t win.

Personally, Mackenzie didn’t think it was possible that he would. The country seemed weary of the president, even his most die-hards. A third term felt like fanfic. She did early voting, opting for the milquetoast but popular governor running against him. His slogan was “Standing up for democracy.” She felt confident the forces that actually ran the country wouldn’t let the alternative happen.

I want to see you, Terence wrote.

Mackenzie’s mouth opened slightly, but she didn’t breathe.

I need to see you, he added.

She stared at the messages and started crying. Only for about ten seconds. It couldn’t have been longer than that.

Me too, she wrote back.

It was time.

I need you, she added.

They started writing daily affirmations to each other. Poetry. Two souls. Terence saw her, and she saw him. They ran parallel. Together, speeding into the wreckage of the earth. They began to sext. Gentle and slow then utter filth.

Mackenzie sent a full nude once (from the chin down) from her and Colin’s bathroom of her holding the glock. Terence sent one back of his mostly unremarkable cock. It wasn't a bad dick. Just sort of there. The angle was from below, like Mackenzie was facing up at him. He was harrier than she thought he’d be, and not as firm. He wasn’t overweight or anything like that. Average. But the lighting in the photo was dim, dingy. Strange. Like it was taken in a hospital bathroom. It made her grimace. She squinted and leaned into her phone. In the corner of the photo she could just make out a single eye peeking out from the frame. A man’s eye looking back down at her. Wide and nervous.

Whatever reservations she had, Mackenzie was committed to meeting. They came up with a plan. Terence would drive up to Pennsylvania for her Lasik procedure, which she had still not told Colin about, even when she was required to wear her glasses again after nearly a year of contacts, in the week before the surgery. Colin told her she was hot in glasses.

“You look like an art teacher,” he said.

“Thanks,” she said.

She invented an overnight conference for work being held in Philly to tell Colin. Terence would go to the Marriott in downtown Lancaster that Mackenzie booked with her debit card, which she paid off separately from the joint credit card she shared with Colin. The same card she was using to pay for the Lasik in installments. Then Terence would walk over to the eye surgeon, 2.6 miles away, and pick up Mackenzie, who would be wearing Lasik eye shields and needing an escort in her post-surgery haze. Terence would drive her car back to the Marriott, where she would sleep the required three hours the surgeon suggested after the procedure and wake up to convalesce with Terence and watch the election returns. Depending on the outcome, they would begin planning how to merge their off-grid futures.

So, when Mackenzie still hadn’t heard from Terence the morning of the procedure, she was confused. He told her he’d be checking in during his trip up from Atlanta; he planned to stop in Tennessee for the night. But she hadn’t received a single message from him since the previous morning. She said goodbye to Colin, who didn’t even ask what the conference was even about. He did ask if Mackenzie had voted already.

“A month ago,” she said.

“Me too,” he said.

Neither of them pressed for more information. She would take Ellie to school on her way to surgery. Colin had to go into the actual office that day for an all-hands, so Mackenzie arranged for her mom to pick Ellie up and stay with them overnight, just in case.

‘ Just in case,’ Mackenzie thought. As if Colin wasn’t capable.

But still, she doubted him. Terence did, too. But right now, she wasn’t sure about Terence, either.

Are you in Pennsylvania yet? She asked.

According to the route he mapped and sent to her, he should have been making his way up into the southernmost part of the state, on the border of Maryland. The battle fields of Gettysburg, PA, then north.

It was raining. There were fewer parents at drop-off, and even fewer kids at school. Many kept their children home because of the election. A car bomb had been set off in Los Angeles at a rally for the opposition the night before. Protests had already begun in D.C. Ellie would be safe at school, though. She cried and asked Mackenzie if she could go to Philly with her. When Mackenzie told her it was just for the night, and that Nana was coming to sleep over tonight, Ellie screamed.

“Nana is so old!” Ellie cried.

Mackenzie was grateful she abandoned her homeschooling plan, at least for now. She wished the Lasik would make Ellie less insufferable. After Ellie was in the school building, Mackenzie messaged Fayral on Signal. She and her family had gone to Canada to wait out the election.

Hope you guys are well, Mackenzie wrote.

We are, Fayral wrote back. Stay safe today.

The eye surgeon’s office was busy. Tuesdays and Thursdays were the two days of the week that Lasik was done, and Mackenzie’s 10:30 surgery was probably going to be pushed till 11. That was fine with her. She wondered if Terence would make it before then. She messaged him again from the tiny examination room she waited in.

At the eye doctor now, she wrote.

He had the directions. He knew the schedule. She started panicking, imagining him being detained at his job. Terence had told her that his security clearance subjected him to routine questioning. What if they’d discovered their chats? He’d alluded to being surveilled by some entity –the military, paramilitary, sub contractor group, a bank. He was convinced there was a bug in his townhome. For some reason, “townhome” stuck with Mackenzie. Not that her house was anything spectacular, but the concept of a townhouse in relation to Terence felt humiliating, almost like he’d accidentally said it. He let it slip, just like the eye in his dick pic. She pictured getting fucked by him on his bed in the second floor of his townhome, covered in stale beige carpet. She’d stare up at the popcorn ceiling, the fan that was only brushed off every quarter, each of its blades covered in half an inch of dust. A widower’s kind of housekeeping. This would be her future in the townhome of sorrow.

She’d leave Colin and Ellie and live with Terence there. But just for a little. They could make it work. They could save even more money. She’d have her savings and would liquidate her 401K.They’d live there until the cabin in North Carolina was ready, and then she’d have Ellie come live with them. Colin could Twitch in peace. She spent an hour on Google Earth looking up subdivisions around Atlanta, trying to determine, by some divine instinct, which row of townhomes hid Terence. One photo struck her. A random row of homes under an overcast, mackerel sky – behind them transmission lines, lonely, ancient towers falling into the distance. She moved the cursor over to the last townhome at the end of the row, seemingly before the ground dropped off into the nothing. A man stood in the driveway, one hand on the rim of the truck bed of his pickup, covered by blue tarp. The man, though slightly blurry, was wearing Oakleys, was turned and facing the street, pointing a finger gun directly at the Google Earth van, as if to say, “I’m watching you, back.” Mackenzie’s stomach dropped. She obviously couldn’t know for sure, but something in her told her this was Terence. She bookmarked the address and screenshotted the photo. Then in one quick motion, she closed her laptop and placed it away from her, like it was caught. She spent the rest of the day nervous-cleaning, worrying about her future with Terence, worrying about leaving Colin alone.

The idea of Colin fending for himself felt like too much for her to bear. The rate of soil erosion in Pennsylvania was rising. Crops were being burned weekly from the blights. Colin can’t cook for himself. The only thing he can make is spaghetti. She imagined him hunched over their dining table and slurping noodles during a rolling blackout, hair line fully receded into the horizon, red sauce on the corners of his mouth, skin sallow, malnourished. Alone. Hot summer wind howling outside and rattling their split-level. It almost took her breath away. Maybe Colin could come with them. They could be a throuple.

Was North Carolina even a good idea? That one hurricane washed away whole mountain towns a few years back. The rivers rose and flooded. There were people still homeless, living out of tents. It doesn’t matter how high up you are. Water always finds a way to kill. Terence wasn’t afraid of water. He was always thinking ahead. Where was his cabin, though? Did he even tell her? She couldn’t remember. He just said Appalachia. Smoky Mountains. North Carolina. Somewhere there. Mackenzie would clear this all up tonight at the hotel. She sat up on the cheesepaper on the exam bed, nearly trembling at the idea of sleeping in the arms of this alien man. Maybe they would have sex. Maybe he would make her cum, right as the final numbers came in for the election.

The TV in the waiting room was on at full volume. Too loud. There were reports of supporters of both candidates intimidating people at polling stations. Bomb threats were called in and voting places had to be evacuated. The president took to social media to threaten martial law if the “vital democratic muscle called voting wasn’t allowed to be flexed.”

A non-binary nurse named Alexis with an industrial bar in their right ear asked Mackenzie twice if she had someone coming to pick her up after. After the second time, Mackenzie answered “Yes” curtly. The nurse raised their eyebrows.

“Sounds good!” Nurse Alexis sang defensively.

Douglas texted their family chain an article claiming that despite the Supreme Court’s ruling, the president’s potential reelection could still be overturned.

Seems like a lot of work, Colin wrote.

Was expecting you to say something like that, Douglas wrote back.

Mackenzie left the chat, which felt dramatic in the most necessary way, and pulled up Signal. Terence still hadn’t even read one message.

I am getting really worried. She wrote to him. Is everything OK?

Nurse Alexis entered again wearing scrubs, gloves. Prepared for war. They plastered on a big fake toothless grin.

“You’re on deck,” Alexis said.

Mackenzie realized they’d be in the operating room with her. She regretted being brusk. What if this nurse let something happen? Surely they’d been in enough procedures to know what to not to do just enough to not be blamed. Mackenzie began to make peace with going blind. Or at the very least, her vision would be working at 90% capacity instead of 100. Nurse Alexis’s Great Revenge.

“Are you nervous?” Alexis asked.

Mackenzie shook her head.

“It’s super easy,” Alexis added.

In the operating room, music played –not Neil Young but some other warbling man she couldn’t think of at first before realizing it was Counting Crows. The doctor, a handsome man in his 50s, flanked by another OR nurse readying the laser, welcomed Mackenzie. He hi-fived her.

“Ready to change your life?” He asked.

“Sure am,” Mackenzie said back in her best atta-girl.

The other OR nurse clarified with Mackenzie if she had it correct that Mackenize didn’t want Xanax during the surgery.

“Yes,” Mackenzie said.

Affirmative. No Xanax. No pills. Clear-headed.

“Want a Teddy Bear then?” Alexis asked.

They held out a literal stuffed animal. Mackenzie was speechless.

“It helps to hold onto something,” they added,.

Mackenzie took it gingerly, like it had Anthrax on it.

“Thanks,” she said.

The surgery began. Mackenzie’s eyes were numbed, and within minutes, she clutched the bear as she felt metal rings press down slowly against each of her eyeballs. The pressure was immense. She heard a pop. She felt a release and started to smile. The doctor sliced her cornea, folded it over. Mackenzie’s vision blurred, but she could still make out the white glare of the light above them. She felt like she was drowning in a creek and was looking up at the sun; the last thing she’d see before her brain turned off. Then came the lasers. Spurts. Flashes. She could smell her singed corneal tissue, like a strange bread baking somewhere. Then she was without sight. It wasn’t blindness, something else. Something more seismic. It was the void. It was nothing. She was certain she wouldn’t see Ellie’s face again and began to panic. This was a mistake. She thought of Terence waiting for her outside, his hands folded together in his lap, wearing an anti-surveillance neck gaiter, like the protestors did in Hong Kong at the beginning of the decade. He told her he always wore it out in public and in the car – wherever there were cameras. Everywhere. He said he’d been stopped by police a few times and told to remove it. Mackenzie ordered one and had it shipped to her office. It was violet colored. She would never see it in person, though. She wouldn’t see anything again. Not Ellie, or Colin, or Terence. She would have to call Colin from the hospital and explain that she had gotten clandestine eye surgery, who Terence was, her long-game doomsday preparation. This strange widower from Georgia. The two men of her life. At least she wouldn’t have to see their faces while they beheld each other.

More lasers again. Her vision started to return, clearer now than they’d ever been. She couldn’t help but gasp.

“Wild, right?” The doctor asked.

“Mmm,” she said.

It felt like the best thing to say.

The reshaping had ended. The corneas smoothed back over like pages of a wet book. Her skull throbbed. They placed the goggles over her, littered with tiny holes. She felt like a hamster. But she could see. She knew she was in the clear. The nurses helped her up and the doctor gave her a hug, which she verbally consented to.

“Congratulations,” the doctor said.

“Thank you,” Mackenzie said.

“You’ll be able to watch those election results more clearly tonight,” The doctor said. “That’s for sure.”

“Lucky timing,” Mackenzie said, forcing a laugh.

“On second thought,” the doctor said solemnly. “You want me to reverse the whole thing?”

She looked back at him, and he smiled, shotgun-pointing her way.

“Just kidding,” he said.

“Be safe out there!” The other OR nurse threw in.

Nurse Alexis escorted Mackenzie back to the exam room and gave her a bottle of water and some Tylenol.

“We love election humor here,” they said flatly.

A few minutes later, the Lasik consultant, who Mackenzie remembered was married to the doctor, came in and told Mackenzid not to use her phone as much as possible for the rest of the day.

“I know you’ll be tempted to stare at your phone screen today of all days,” she said. “But it’s very important not to.”

“Will do,” Mackenzie said.

By tomorrow she'd be able to drive herself back to the office for a post-exam check. The consultant had at least six bracelets on that jangled as she wrote up Mackenzie’s release.

“And you do have someone coming to take you home?” she asked.

“Yes,” Mackenzie said. “Is he not here?”

The consultant didn’t know. Neither did Nurse Alexis, when they came back in from checking in the waiting room.

“Not a soul in sight,” they said.

“There must be some traffic,” Mackenzie said. “That protest outside.”

Nurse Alexis and the consultant nodded.

Pity nods, Mackenzie thought.

She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror. She looked ridiculous. But now she was also impervious. Improved eyes, improved body. She was braver than anyone who ever was.

Mackenzie waited for almost an hour before the Lasik consultant returned and asked if she wanted them to call her a car. Mackenzie told them she’d driven herself, and that the person meeting her would drive it to the hotel she was staying at.

“Where’s the hotel?” the consultant asked.

“The Marriott,” Mackenzie said, her voice strangely deep.

The consultant emphasized again how important the post-surgery nap Mackenzie needed to talk was –three hours, at least. Her eyes needed to heal. Through the tiny holes in her eye shield, she slowly pulled up her messages with Terence. Colin had texted her, which he usually didn’t during her workdays, unless it had something to do with Ellie or a household thing.

How’s Philly? He wrote.

Mackenzie wanted to hurl. Her eyes were stinging now. Did Colin know something was up? What if he followed her? Mackenzie realized she was giving him a lot of credit.

It’s good, she wrote. The conference sucks.

She messaged Terence on Signal.

I don’t understand what I did wrong, she wrote.

Eventually, Mackenzie agreed to let Nurse Alexis drive her to the hotel. Their car was in the shop, and they were taking the rest of the day off to “get some affairs in order.”

“I live right near the Marriott anyway,” Nurse Alexis said proudly.

The two drove in silence for five of the ten minute journey. It was still raining. Mackenzie’s head rested on the window, often interrupted by Alexis’s jerky braking. She wondered if that was intentional. They wanted to keep Mackenzie on her toes. Maybe they’d known each other in a past life. It sort of felt like that. Their love/hate felt understood. Inherent. There was also deep trust. It felt impossible, but Mackenzie was certain Nurse Alexis was the best friend she ever had.

A rally for the opposition was taking place in downtown Lancaster, near the hotel. Traffic slowed. In her close-to-REM catnap in the car, Mackenzie could hear indecipherable platitudes being screamed at from a bullhorn.

“Everybody’s freaking out,” Alexis said. “But when are they not?”

Mackenzie nodded and looked out at the painful light, squinting her eyes.

“So, what’s your exit plan?” Alexis asked.

Mackenzie turned, startled. Alexis looked back at her, confused.

“In case he wins,” Alexis said. “Which is looking likely.”

Mackenzie felt paranoid. She wondered if Nurse Alexis was even a nurse at all. They were FBI or Secret Service. They were DHS. They were ICE. They were monitoring the Signal group. They were here to turn Mackenzie. To question her. Terence had stolen information on his phone from the weapons manufacturer he worked for, or whatever the fuck it was that he did. Or worse, he was a fraud. Embezzlement. Wire fraud. Scammer. He was a human trafficker. Child trafficker. Heroin. He lied about being a widower. He’d never had a wife. He was still married. Or maybe Terence was a Fed. All this time. She was sexting with the Bureau. She was being groomed. She’d be labeled a terrorist, like so many people were these days. Signal wasn’t safe. Neither was Michigan. Or the Smoky Mountains. Nowhere was safe.

Alexis side-eyed Mackenzie, waiting for a response. Mackenzie gained herself back and took a deep breath. Exhaled.

“I haven’t gotten that far yet,” Mackenzie said.

“Period,” Alexis said.

At the hotel, Alexis walked Mackenzie into the lobby and helped her check in. When Mackenzie turned to thank them, Alexis was already gone in the rain. Gone somewhere far, maybe another country. Mackenzie was able to get up and into her room without any help, despite insistence from one of the bellhops, looking for a good tip. The hotel room itself was cozy, with a cold hard wood floor. Mackenzie closed the shades and crawled into bed with her jeans still on. She pulled up her phone. Still no reply from Terence. She wondered if he had died. He choked on some food he’d heated up for dinner; his lifeless body still on the kitchen floor and not discovered for days.

You’re a fucking piece of shit and I hope you’re dead, she typed.

Mackenzie almost sent it but deleted it and started over. She decided on I’m very disappointed, turned her phone off and fell asleep. The deepest sleep of her life.

When Mackenzie woke up, she was convinced it was the next morning. The room was dark. The only light was a red circle from the carbon monoxide detector. She stumbled her way over to the bathroom to pee, leaving the light and fan on so she could at least see where her phone was. She turned it on and flopped over to the curtains to open them, the evening stinging her eyes. At least they weren’t as aching as they had been. She could see clearly through the goggles now. It was miraculous.. Outside, the rain had let up. The sky was dark and purple. In the street below, the demonstration had grown. She could hear someone on the bullhorn again. Around them, police in riot gear waited. Her phone vibrated, and she grabbed it and turned the brightness down as much as she could. A text from her mother with a photo of Ellie eating dinner. A text from Colin telling her to be careful in Philly tonight.

Prob will be rioting when he wins, he wrote. People are such animals.

I’ll be safe, she wrote back.

I love you, Colin wrote.

Mackenzie sent a heart emoji and then turned the bedside lamp on. Every moment, it felt like her sight improved. She dialed room service and ordered chicken tenders with extra barbecue sauce, caesar salad with extra croutons, french fries, a piece of cheesecake and a Shirley Temple. She turned the election coverage on and muted it, scrolling through the Signal chat. One network had already called it for the president, but most felt it was still too early.

She looked at Signal; the 20-person chat was humming. There were posts about the national guard being called into New York and Chicago, illegally. Unconfirmed reports of voting fraud, a car bomb in Hollywood. A few people, including Jim the Vermont Gay, revealed themselves to be supporters of the president, and fielded attacks lobbed by the other members.

We’re better off with some common sense in charge while the world ends! Jim wrote.

Tell us that again when they come to round you and your husband up, Lindsey wrote. Bootlicker!

Some people in the chat claimed to already be stationed at their bunkers, their cabins. Readying their stockpile.

Then Mackenzie saw it: Terence’s name. His post: a link to a hybrid energy generator he’d purchased that just arrived that morning.

Excited to put this baby to use! Terence wrote.

Mackenzie let out a noise –somewhere between a yelp and scream. She pulled up her messages to Terence. There still was no reply from him, but he had since read them all. Mackenzie stared at the link he posted in the group chat. The generator. This baby. What a fucking dork.

She ordered the generator on Amazon, anyway, and continued to stare at Terence’s dumb message and every other dumb message before it. Mackenzie couldn’t believe what she was looking at. A chat full of losers and absolute freaks, wasting the possibly final hours of this beautiful, fake democracy scolding and one-upping each other on their phones. Mackenzie held herself. Her arms were still sore from her workout yesterday. Burpees. She remembered Terence once claimed that he held a record at his local CrossFit class for burpees. 700 in an hour.

“Incredible,” Mackenzie said before laughing out loud in her dark hotel room.

Then she got an idea. She scoured through a porn site for pegging videos. She knew she shouldn’t have been looking so intensely at her phone screen, but this was important. It was maybe 45 seconds before Mackenzie found the same one she’d seen on her husband’s computer way back when. The same guy arched with his taut muscle ass in the air; the woman with her breasts pulled over a black leather bustier, driving the strap-on deeper into the man’s willing, puckered hole. Mackenzie copied the link and posted it in the group chat text box.

Came across this video that Terence and I reenacted once in private, over the course of several intense, confusing but ultimately beautiful hours at his glorious home outside of Atlanta, Georgia (click here for address), Mackenzie hyper-liked to the Google Earth street view address she bookmarked while stalking. It was anyone’s guess if this was actually where Terence lived, but she’d find out soon enough.

We found this video incredibly informative and helpful, like a how-to guide, the post continued. It takes an incredibly secure (and not to mention talented!) man like Terence to replicate the performance in this video. I’d regret not sharing it with you all, especially at this most unprecedented and uncertain moment in American history. We all need to depend on each other.

Mackenzie posted the message and waited. After a few moments, she watched the replies roll in.

“That’s for the messy kids,” his dad said.

“The kids whose parents are divorced,” his mom added.

Now that he was in 8th grade, the odds of him becoming a Buy Lunch Kid were nonexistent. The Buy Lunch Kids were cool. The Buy Lunch Kids had money on them in little zip-loc bags, or a crumpled envelope. They got to decide what they ate. Sometimes they’d just opt for a bag of chips and save the rest of the money for candy or kratom after school.

His dad started making Schuyler lunch every morning since the start of middle school. Chicken, pinto beans, quinoa, almonds, sweet potatoes, and two hard-boiled eggs. Schuyler’s dad was on a mission to jumpstart a growth spurt. Schuyler was small, even for a 13-year-old, and his pediatrician warned his parents that he may not reach puberty till as late as 16. The intense meal began to attract attention from some of the other kids during lunch.

Last year, his classmate Keith, a prodigious wrestler, who would sometimes sneak up on Schuyler in the cafeteria and place him in a headlock till he began to brown out, noticed the meal and started calling Schuyler “Fart Box.” Once or twice he’d swipe one of the eggs for himself. He campaigned to mint the name of Schuyler, for exactly two days, it stuck. Schuyler was greeted with fart sounds by the boys who played football at recess and laughed at in the hallways by the girls who had popular older siblings, one of the great shortcuts in life. Schuyler wasn’t as lucky. He was an only child.

By the end of the second day, Schuyler almost began to welcome this newfound character. This persona. He was Fart Box. He could make this work. He even laughed himself, which seemed to confuse and even delight his would-be tormenters. Then it faded and he was longing to be Fart Box again. His 48 hour golden era. At the end of the week, Schuyler approached Keith at his table of cool guys and handed him one of the hard boiled eggs, waiting for Keith to recognize to the joke. He didn’t.

“Oh,” Keith said. “Thanks.”

He took the egg and turned back to his friends. Schuyler waited for a moment, then turned, hoping he’d hear at least some snickering. But there was nothing.

Because really, aside from some one-offs, Schuyler didn’t get bullied. Getting bullied would mean there was something memorable about him. Getting bullied would mean he was undeniable. There was something about you that everyone could agree on that was too big to ignore. You were a threat that needed to be neutralized. Schuyler would almost prefer getting bullied to being completely ignored. At the end of the day, Schuyler wasn’t a threat. He was random. The worst fate of all.

He wouldn’t be random after today, though, because Timmy would be there soon, and then they would do what they planned to do and leave this place forever. Timmy came into Schuyler’s life shortly after Alex, Schuyler’s closest friend since kindergarten, was placed in a medically-induced coma after asphyxiating himself during a TikTok challenge called ‘Heaven.” The challenge, which had swept the platform the time between its former and most recent banning, saw kids causing themselves to stop breathing to confirm whether or not there was an afterlife. Alex had begun drifting from Schuyler shortly after the holidays in 7th grade; he almost didn’t invite Schuyler to his birthday party – a hibachi dinner –until Alex’s mom called Schuyler’s to ensure an invitation. The all-boys dinner, which was made up of a strangely impersonal guest list, including Keith, a few of his fellow jock lackeys, and a smattering of orchestra and cross-country freaks. Alex didn’t talk to Schuyler, who sat at the end of the table, and barely made it into the standard polaroid photo that was taken of the group when the cake came.

Towards the end of the school year, the only communication Schuyler had with Alex was over Snapchat, but even then, they were chats Alex was sending to his entire Friends List. Schuyler was lost in the mix. Alex was Live on Tiktok for his Heaven challenge, tying a rope around his neck that was attached to his bedroom doorknob. Schuyler watched as Alex turned purple. He thought about calling 911, but figured someone else would. Besides, he wanted to see if Alex did in fact glimpse the other side. If he traversed the cosmos. Schuyler didn’t believe in heaven, but was open to being proven wrong. It’s not like anything here on Earth was going right. It’d be nice to have something to look forward to. Eventually, someone did call for help. The paramedics came and Alex was rushed to the hospital. After coming out of his coma in the summer, Alex was transported to a long-term care facility outside of Philadelphia. The last Schuyler heard, Alex was re-learning to read, and walk.

Alex’s parents asked Schuyler’s parents if they wanted to take the two hour drive east to Philly so Schuyler could visit Alex. Schuyler consulted with Timmy first, who seemed sus of the matter. Why was it Schuyler’s responsibility? They weren’t even friends when Alex did the Heaven challenge. Alex ditched Schuyler, and for what, anyway? Especially now — barely anyone remembered Alex’s stunt. TikTok got banned a month after it happened and the White House ordered all the data be destroyed, again. Any screen recordings of Alex’s livestream were uploaded to Reddit, which were promptly taken down, then onto 4chan, disappearing into the nether regions of the internet. Alex was a nobody. He was what he’d begun to think of Schuyler, all along.

Alex is a coma ass beta bitch, Timmy wrote to Schuyler. No cap.

No cap, Schuyler wrote back.

Schuyler told his parents he didn’t want to go, which surprised them. It surprised Alex's parents, too. They were heartbroken.

Whatever, Timmy wrote when Schuyler told him.

Schuyler didn’t care about Alex anymore. It was Schuyler and Timmy now. They talked every day, all day. During the rest of the school year, and then in the summer, Schuyler stayed up till 4 or 5 am most nights talking. Schuyler slept till noon sometimes. His parents started getting upset about it. Schuyler’s dad forced him to get up with him for work, on as little as two hours of sleep. Schuyler would go with his dad to his job, managing a construction site outside of Lititz, PA, near the Amish towns. He’d sit in his office and do small tasks for him for a little money. Schuyler would complain to Timmy about how tired he was.

No sleep is hard af, Timmy wrote. Don’t be a pussy.

Schuyler went for a walk one day during one of the record breaking heat waves bludgeoning Pennsylvania that summer. His dad was being interviewed by DHS, after ICE was tipped off about some undocumented workers on the site. Schuyler wandered away when his dad started yelling, and kept going until he was two miles away, near an abandoned Amish settlement. There were scattered houses boarded up with plywood, red “X” spray painted across them. Other buildings, like the small church, had been graffitied and vandalized. Schuyler remembered a few Amish communities had been completely wiped out during the flu of 2025. Here was one, left as a memorial, attracting only meth heads and bored kids. Instinctively, Schuyler took off his shit and covered his mouth with it. He started patrolling through the silent ruins, hoping to stumble across a skeletons A mass grave. He knew they’d all been burned. He remembered the smell. He was eight when it happened, but he remembered. During the lockdown, his dad and him were out in the backyard at dusk and Schuyler started smelling burning flesh. His dad pretended it was just a campfire.

We could take it over and start a town, Timmy wrote later, when Schuyler told him about the Amish site. Let’s just leave school and fucking rule over it. People can join if they want, but it’s ours. They have to always know that. We’ll remind them.

Schuyler tried to picture Timmy and him overseeing a town hall meeting, machete-ing people’s hands off if they asked for too much.

We need girls too, Timmy added. Can’t just be a sausage fest.

That was fine with Schuyler. Girls were fine enough. He didn’t know too many. Sometimes one would talk to him during class, if they needed a pencil, or they could switch seats with him so they could work with a friend for a project. One girl named Charlotte added him on Snapchat last year and sent smiley faces. They were in choir together. She wasn’t cool but she also wasn’t random. She seemed to have a lot of friends. One of them asked Schuyler if he had a girlfriend before choir started once.

“No,” he said.

“Are you gay?” The friend asked.

“No,” he said, deepening his voice.

He really wasn’t. He knew he liked girls. He just didn’t care enough about them. Or about anyone. Charlotte was pretty, sure. Tall, semi-boobs, only mild acne. But he didn’t want to have to try. He also didn’t want her to have to try, either. That at least felt considerate. For about a month, they exchanged sporadic messages on Snap, sometimes during choir, but ultimately she got bored and started to ignore him. He didn't blame her.

Why didn’t you titty fuck her? Timmy asked.

Idk, Schuyler wrote.

He knew of one girl who got titty fucked in his class. Girls were getting fingered. Everyone was getting fingered. Sometimes Schuyler wondered if he should get fingered. He didn’t really even know what fingered meant, but he wondered, anyway. There was a rumor that a couple who’d been together since 5th grade and had no other friends outside of their relationship, had full sex that summer. Schuyler would see them breezing through the hallways, holding hands. They looked like they were in their 40s. Some classmates started calling them “Mom and Dad.”

Losers, Timmy wrote.

Schuyler agreed. He watched porn on his phone. The ones he liked most were when a thin man with a mid dick watched his too-hot-for-him wife get plowed by a ripped guy with a giant hog cock. Timmy sent him porn to watch, too, sometimes of milfs and college girls getting banged by like, six guys. But Schuyler didn’t care for those. He didn’t really feel sexual, ever. He’d jerked off a few times that summer and was able to cum at least three of those times; Timmy gave him the best tips for it. Mostly he just wanted to watch YouTube videos of police bodycams. People having nervous breakdowns in public. Karens getting owned. He had a 9/11 week, watching hours and hours of it as it happened news footage of the planes hitting the towers, the jumpers, the avalanche of dust, the conspiracy theories. Osama Bin Laden interviews from the 1990s.

Kind of beast tbh, Timmy wrote.

The president got shot at for a second time, at a rally. Schuyler hadn’t been paying attention to the election. He knew his parents were worried, but Timmy told him to ignore their bitching. The president was shot in the shoulder; the bullet went clear through it and into the head of a woman who looked like a gym teacher, sitting in the bleachers behind him. The president lived, obviously, but the woman who got shot was the first time Schuyler saw someone die. Right there. Right then. Her head was blown clean off. Blood splattering all over the people next to her. It replayed over and over again on news channels who, depending on their line in the sand, played it uncensored to reveal to the American people what “polarization against this president is leading to.”

“We are descending into Barbarism,” a news anchor said.

There were riots. Some people flew their American flags. Others refused. A domestic terrorist cell that had claimed responsibility for some car bombings in Los Angeles the previous winter, were active again. They threatened to bomb rallies for the president; to assassinate the Supreme Court justices who were enabling the president’s unprecedented third term bid. Some believed they were responsible for the assassination attempt on the president, even when the shooter was discovered to be a 30-something year old man who’d written a manifesto about wind turbines being used to brainwash people. Kelsey, Schuyler’s babysitter when he was younger, was arrested at a protest on her college campus in Chicago that spring. She was discovered to be part of a student group sending Zelle payments to the terrorists. She remained in detainment to this day, and her location was undisclosed, even to her family. Her parents petitioned and camped outside their district congresswoman’s office in Harrisburg demanding answers. None were given. People began distancing themselves from Kelsey’s mom and dad. Even Alex’s parents, who’d vacationed with them before, began to faze them out. Especially after DHS visited their home and questioned Schuyler about his communication with Kelsey. Other than Alex, and now Timmy, she was probably the closest thing Schuyler ever had to a sibling. They kept in touch over Snapchat once in a while. She always encouraged him to make new friends. It was big news at school when people found out about her detainment, and especially Timmy’s connection to her. Keith was impressed. But, like everything, it ran its course quickly, and Schuyler was siloed into the random-sphere once more.

No one is in charge of anything, Timmy wrote about the election. It doesn’t matter who wins.

Sometimes Timmy annoyed Schuyler with his IDGAF-ness, but whenever he really thought about it, Timmy was always right.

His mom’s friend got Schuyler a job at the snack bar at the summer club nearby. He manned the ice cream machine and organized the walk-in freezer. The register was reserved for the older girls. The intercom was a weapon for them. Their reign over the pool. They called orders out like it was the DMV. He saw Charlotte one day, who was waiting for nachos at the service window. She said hi to him. He was carrying a crate of milk and pretending like his arms weren’t ripping at the seams. He barely nodded back.

“Sup,” he said.

Keith and some of the football-at-recess boys came by once, too. They flirted with the older girls who rolled their eyes, and pretended not to be amused. When Keith saw Schuyler, he lit up, making an air horn noise.

“What up, Fart Box?!” Keith asked.

Schuyler felt relieved. He remembered. Keith had grown a little that summer. He had muscle now and some zits on his cheeks and chest, but was still good looking. His voice had mostly dropped.

“Sup,” he said.

“Sup,” One of the guys repeated, imitating Schuyler’s still-high voice.

Keith asked for a vanilla/strawberry soft serve and the same guy who imitated Schuyler called Keith a fag. Keith playfully punched him in the stomach and Schuyler got to work on the soft serve.

“Yo, I heard Alex is like, retarded now,” Keith said.

Schuyler turned around. Keith, somehow, seemed genuine in his questioning.

“He has brain damage,” Schuyler said, handing him the ice cream.

The older girls weren’t paying attention now, chatting and texting on their phones.

“Damn,” Keith said. “That sucks.”

Schuyler nodded.

“So stupid what he did,” Keith said, sticking the ice cream into his mouth.

“Yeah,” Schuyler said. “He’s a coma ass beta bitch.”

A few of the football boys looked over, so did the older girls. Keith pulled the ice cream out from his face, some of it remained on the corner of his mouth.

“What?” Keith asked quietly.

Schuyler turned red. He knew what he said was weird. So did everyone else.

Keith handed him a five and walked off, his friends following him. Schuyler could hear them laughing about him. Schuyler imagined drowning Keith in the pool while everyone watched in silence. He could see Keith’s eyes popping out of his skull from under the surface.

One of the older snack bar girls told Alex to go do busy work in the freezer.

“Your aura is bad today,” she said, waving her hand around Schuyler’s face.

Schuyler cried in the walk-in fridge. He stood, shivering, texting Timmy about what happened with Keith, the girls who run the snack bar. Timmy told him to buck up. Get the tasks done without question.

Keith will always be who chicks like that pick, Timmy wrote. Do something about it or at least stop crying, you pussy.

Do what? Schuyler wrote.

Pick a fight with Keith in front of them, Timmy wrote.

Keith would demolish me, Schuyler wrote.

This is why you’re crying in a freezer, Timmy wrote.

Schuyler screamed and punched the shelf, which brushed his knuckle and made him cry harder. A metal tray and a few ice cream scoopers knocked off and fell to the floor. He could hear the girls outside start laughing.

“What are you doing in there, freak?” One of them called out.

Schuyler said nothing. He wiped away his tears and picked up the items on the floor. Shaking, he texted Timmy to go fuck himself.

They didn’t talk for the rest of the afternoon. That night, Schuyler apologized to Timmy.

Don’t apologize to me, Timmy wrote. I’m not the one who got owned today.

Schuyler wanted to cry again but instead held it in and agreed. Timmy suggested he get even with the girls at the snack bar; get them in trouble. He suggested Schuyler steal money from the register and blame it on them. They were responsible for the cash. They’d be the first suspects. Schuyler almost puked the next morning after he did it. He stole two hundred dollars. Later he could hear the girls freaking out about it when they realized it was missing. They called Schuyler’s mom’s friend, who ran the snack bar; she rushed over after dropping her daughter off at theater camp. The manager of the swim club and a security guard came down; they reviewed surveillance footage together. Schuyler rushed to the bathroom and hid the money in an empty locker. He texted his mom to come get him and slipped out of the club unnoticed. Around dinnertime that night, though, Schuyler’s mom received a phone call from her friend, informing her of what happened. Instead of turning it into a whole thing, Schuyler was simply fired and politely asked not to return to the swim club again. He was grounded for the remainder of the summer.

As Labor Day approached, his parents had Schuyler meet with a therapist again, the same one they used when Alex was in a coma. The therapist was a trans woman and their sessions were remote. She was kind and funny. Schuyler didn’t know where she lived. She was very private. Unlike before, though, her camera was now off. It made every appointment a little strange. He thought about asking her if she could turn it on but figured she had a good reason.

She’s chopped as all hell and she knows it, Timmy wrote during the session. That’s why she has her camera off.

She asked Schuyler if he was still talking to Timmy.

Tell her no, Timmy wrote.

“No,” Schuyler said.

“How is that for you?” She asked. “Not talking to Timmy.”

Tell her it’s good, Timmy wrote.

“It’s good,” Schuyler said.

His parents started making Schuyler turn his phone off at night, which he did. They told him they never wanted a reason to take his phone and look through it, but told him they would if they had to.

“We’re trusting you not to turn it on,” his mom said.

Schuyler told them they could trust him.

One night, though, at around 3 am, he woke with his heart pounding. He was drenched in so much sweat that he was convinced he pissed the bed. He hadn’t done that in a few months. He needed Timmy. Timmy was all he could think about. Timmy was the answer. Schuyler’s salvation. Savior. Where Timmy was, Schuyler wanted to be.

Are you awake? He wrote Timmy.

I’m here, Timmy wrote back quickly.

Can we meet? Schuyler wrote. I need to get out of this place.

Yeah dude, we can meet, Timmy wrote. You just have to do one thing for me before that can happen.

Schuyler watched the ellipsis as Timmy typed. The plan was pretty simple. They’d meet and then buy food and soda and water with the money Schuyler would steal from his dad’s office at the construction site. An emergency stash. A few thousand. Then they’d go to that abandoned Amish settlement and start their own town, just like they talked about. They’d get swole together and soon their dicks would get bigger and bigger. They would be muscle lords together. And with the way shit was going in the world, more people would come to the town to either steal stuff or want to live there. They’d have to pass tests to live there. A week’s worth of tests of running, pushups, eating as much as they could till they barf. Eating as little as possible till they passed out. Schuyler’s parents weren't allowed. And there would be hot girls there, of course. No mid chicks. Only hot girls with the biggest natural boobs and not slutty. But Schuyler and Timmy couldn’t be distracted by then. Actually, they would never even talk to them. They weren’t allowed to talk to them. They’d just be there, in the background. It would be Schuyler and Timmy, then everyone else.

All Schuyler had to do first was stab Keith to show Timmy that he was strong.

I need to know I can depend on you, Timmy wrote.

It didn’t take Schuyler much convincing. And not everyone dies from being stabbed, anyway.

That’s true, Timmy wrote. He might just survive and be in the hospital, like Alex. So cringe.

But Timmy added that killing Keith fully would prove to him that Schuyler was a beast. Schuyler wanted to prove everything to Timmy. The greatest friend he ever had. He made Timmy promise that after he stabbed Keith, Timmy would be there at the school. He just needed to know that he had backup. That he had someone there for him.

You know I’ll be there, Timmy wrote. You pull the fire alarm after you do it, and it’ll be the signal for me.

They discussed the right timing. An assembly coming up for the 8th graders about deep fakes in the lead-up to the election, and how they had a responsibility to everyone younger, including the kids in the lower school, to not spread misinformation. It was happening in the morning. Around 9 am. A powerpoint. A skit from a White House youth outreach program. A conversation with the students. Everyone would be together. Keith always sat in the center of his friends, so Timmy suggested Schuyler do it while everyone was walking into the auditorium.

Just run up and do it, Timmy wrote. In the neck and in the stomach. He’s your final opp.

The knife would be hard to smuggle in. There were metal detectors in place since Schuyler started 6th grade. That’s when Timmy reminded Schuyler of the cafeteria. There were knives all over that thing. It’d be easy to grab one in the morning.

When all the cafeteria bitches are all getting their shit sorted out, Timmy added.

***

Schuyler walked to school that morning. He told his parents he wanted to start exercising, which made his dad especially happy. He brought a duffle bag, which he said he was using to lift after school. His dad lent him a Nalgene for water and a big thing of Whey Protein.

“Thanks,” Schuyler said to him.

He figured Timmy would appreciate the Whey more than him. He stuffed the duffle bag with overnight clothes, at least enough for a few weeks, while they set up camp in the Amish town. Schuyler said bye to his parents; his mom hugged him, which made him want to cry, but he held it in. No tears. Timmy would be pissed. At school, he breezed through the metal detectors; they were patting down the 8th graders, per the White House’s policy to protect any administration employee in a public place. The White House Youth Outreach team had arrived already; students cheered and waved excitedly at them as they were escorted through the hallway in their matching t-shirts.

Schuyler hid in the stall in the restroom through the homeroom clutching his duffel and backpack. When the first period bell rang –there would only be fifteen minutes of the class, anyway, before the assembly –Schuyler parked his bags behind a corner near the auditorium and was able to maneuver into the kitchen and grab the knife without being noticed, just like Timmy said. It helped to be unremarkable. A wisp of a boy. Even so, he figured the surveillance cameras would spot him shortly. By that point, though, Keith would already be bleeding out like a geyser. Schuyler and Timmy would be on their way to their new home.

Knife secured, he wrote Timmy. Are you here yet?

Almost there bro, Timmy wrote.

Timmy told Schuyler –he wasn’t suggesting things anymore– to wait where he stashed his bags. The bell rang and he heard the growing growl of his classmates filing into the hallway before the assembly. Keith was there, jumping on the book of one of his friends. Schuyler’s chest nearly exploded. He gripped the chef’s knife under his shirt; he could feel the cold blade on his distended stomach. He forgot to eat breakfast that morning and felt shaky. He closed his eyes.

He kept them closed even when, minutes later, he unfurled his arms –his phone in one hand, the knife in the other. A straggler student late to the assembly spotted him, yelling for a teacher or anyone to come help. Moments later, Schuyler opened his eyes as he was being tackled to the ground by a school police officer, his phone and knife removed by the assistant principal who followed after. His legs were held down by two teachers he couldn’t see. Schuyler knew they were shouting but it sounded like he was underwater. He remembered being at the Jersey Shore, and sticking his head in a wave and hearing the whirring of a speeding boat miles out.

His phone vibrated as it was ripped from his hand, and he knew it was a message from Timmy. Timmy must be in the building now, looking for him. Schuyler just needed to see him once in person before he was hauled off to jail or juvenile hall or a mental hospital. Timmy, Timmy. Timmy. Schuyler’s dearest friend in the world rushing to be at his side. Here to take Schuyler away from this place forever. Timmy, Timmy, Timmy. The bravest, the toughest. Tough Timmy.

Tough Timmy, the critically acclaimed emotional support Chatbot for boys; one of the greatest breakthroughs in public-facing AGI. Schuyler’s parents had downloaded Tough Timmy shortly after Alex hurt himself, and Schuyler started wetting his bed at night. While they looked for the right therapist, Tough Timmy was a good interim counselor. Because Timmy was there for the parents as much as he was there for the boy. Tough Timmy understood boys. Tough Timmy spoke boy. Tough Timmy helped us solve one of the great mysteries of our time: Why are boys like that?

Your son is going to be on his phone anyway, why not have him talk to a friend? A friend whose sole purpose is to be a friend. A friend who’s been tested and approved by some of the top developmental psychologists in the US. A friend who’s helped over 100,000 boys and counting. A friend whose benefits outweigh the glitches which, for the record, are few and far between.

And if you can also believe it, I had my birthday at the end of April, I am now 8,000 years old. You can’t even know how it feels to be this ancient, especially in Los Angeles, where everyone is young. When I step outside now, people throw pennies at me and leave vegetable offerings at my feet. They build me altars and bring their babies for me to kiss on the head. Blessings onto you!

Speaking of blessings. The new Pope is hot, right? He’s hot. I would probably suck him, which I hate.

Anyway, the crowds bring me their babies to bless.

“There he is,” they cry. “The oldest gay that’s ever lived in LA.”

36 came and went. And I am fine with it. I pretended to be humble and not want attention in the days leading up to my birthday. I told my husband and some friends that I didn’t “want to do anything.” I didn’t want to make a fuss. Lil’ ol’ me. Birthdays don’t matter after 35. Why celebrate? How tacky. Especially in a world like the one we live in today. What’s there to be happy about? The morning of my birthday I put on an oversized shirt I bought in New Orleans because I wanted to feel like I’d been miniaturized. A teeny-tiny young person. Just like Sabrina Carpenter.

On my way to work, I started panicking about time running out, and called Simon and said I actually want to do a birthday dinner. It started as a dinner for four, and then it became 10. Tee hee. Who me?! My birthday?! We went to El Coyote, where Sharon Tate and her cohorts had their last meal before being slaughtered. I bought myself a cake at Whole Foods and we ate it there. It was lovely.

We had another blast of wharf weather for a few weeks but now the sun is back. We’re on the final day of a heatwave —record breaking temperatures in places around the county. It’s not spring or summer. It’s something else — something not right. Unwell. At least right now you can say LA is a city that is sunny and not feel like you’re lying. Because really, Los Angeles is a cold city. And when it’s not cold, it is on fire. Climate change has already made everything shittier. Sure, in the extreme way. But more so in a way that makes you feel crazy. It’s subtle. Slightly altered. Rearranged. Was it always like this? The answer is no. It wasn’t. Climate change is at worst, deadly, and even worse than that, quirky. It’s a server at a theme restaurant saying, “We do things a little differently here.” The other day, a friend texted me that he feels like “Seasons are a thing of our childhood now.” I actually said “Oh wow,” out loud when I read it. He’s right. But at least it’s sunny for now.

When there is sun in LA, and I look into the sky and see the vapor trail of a jet inching towards the outer band of the troposphere, I imagine it’s from somewhere outside the US and just passing through. The pilot came on the intercom when the plane had entered the mainland after crossing the Atlantic and instructed the passengers and crew to hold their breath until they’d reached the west coast.

“Once we’re over the Pacific, we’ll be fine again,” the pilot added.

Everyone turning purple, trying their best not to breathe the air of this broken nation.

The other week I heard someone in an AA meeting share that they hate LA, which started a swell of “Me toos” from other people. I almost cried I was so happy. I was where I needed to be. Thanks for sharing. More, please. Sometimes community is hating the same thing.

In all seriousness, I don’t hate LA. It’s brought me beautiful things. My husband. Our dog. Friends. It’s certainly kept me sober — I don’t think I would have stayed sober had I remained in New York, at least at that time. I don’t hate LA, I just don’t understand it. Sometimes Los Angeles feels like calculus. Staring at geometry. It is a tesseract floating in the void. It’s a city that shouldn’t exist but does. It’s too sprawling. Built on land that doesn’t want us. The fires made me certain of that. But of course, like any ungrateful little shit, as soon as I knew LA could be taken away from me, I needed it desperately. It took my breath away. All the beauty and the horror, etc. That’s probably it. I’m not grateful enough for this place. Or maybe it’s because this city feels doomed. It’s too fragile. I’m American and want guarantees. LA isn’t guaranteed. It isn’t steely. It’s not a New York, or a Chicago. Even San Francisco, for all the hell portal-opening, society-flattening evil that has been born on computers in its surrounding areas, feels rooted. It’s a part of the country, the world. LA isn’t. I don’t want to grow old in a place that isn’t permanent; a place I might lose. But here I am, getting older. I will either fall into the cracking earth or burn alive here one day. As long as my husband and dog get out alive, I can make peace with this.

It’s more than LA that I don’t understand. It’s this country. This country that doesn’t feel like a country anymore and hasn’t for a while. Even before this White House was conjured into place, riding in on the Western Winds, bringing with them locusts, pestilence. Our Pazuzu-ass president, determined to make sure every plane crashes and no one has money anymore, while still finding time to fantasize about Mayor Pete riding to work with his husband standing up on the back pedals; his Prime of Miss Jean Brodie tea! He and his human centipede of Sphinx-faced psychos and tech ghouls sucking each other’s holes will keep pillaging and dismantling and banning and deporting everyone —citizens next— to El Salvadorian labor camps until we are all gone and there is no one left in the US but them. Then they’ll leave and go to whatever bunker city Mark Zuckerberg is building under his compound in Hawaii or go to Dubai where they’ll go to live out the rest of their days in a Cheesecake Factory in Dubai until they’re close to death and opt to be cryogenically frozen.

This weekend I listened to a complete oral history of 9/11 on audiobook and started taking Nutrafol. Last night I went to the Cheesecake Factory at the Grove and remembered there still might be hope after all. Everyone who was working there was gay or nonbinary and I felt certain it was the safest place I could have been in this entire country. This is what it means to be an LGBT American and at a Cheesecake Factory. We were there together, preserved in the arctic A.C. of this restaurant that looks like Saddam Hussein’s palace at Epcot. They should distribute PrEP at this Cheesecake Factory once they ban PrEP in the US. The Cheesecake Factory is an autonomous zone. A nation state. It is apart. We have our own post office. Your jurisdiction doesn’t reach here.

I am certainty doomed, yes, but I don’t mind it. I don’t feel any kind of way about the prospect of eternity. It could be easy for me to say, in the beginning, I hated it. In the early days, when I began to learn how to live for blood, how to kill and remain unremarkable — so unremarkable that even if you passed by me on the street when you were a child, and then again when you were ancient and miserable, you wouldn’t remember me. Not a single firing synapse or jolt of familiarity. Just utter blankness.

It would be easy for me to say I despaired at this notion of plainness as survival at the start of all of this, but the truth is I don’t really remember the beginning. The human brain refuses longevity. It cannot conceive of being endless. It is designed to die. It can’t store decades or centuries. After a certain point, it deletes. Not to protect you, but because there is no more room.

And I’m not saying I’ve been like this for centuries. I can’t know that for sure. I can’t remember my life before, but I do see flashes of my death. I know I was disposed of in a marshland by someone like me. Somewhere humid and foul. I can hear the flies buzzing and water trickling. I see myself from above myself — my neck torn open, my face bloated and skin yellow; my eyes without any color. I can picture it perfectly. I am looking at myself like I am strapped to an invisible gurney and turned upside down. There is no going any higher than that because there is nothing else higher. Just space and silence.

I don’t blame whoever made me this way. They needed to survive. I just blame them for not finishing the job. Sometimes when I am lonely I like to think they turned me intentionally. They wanted a friend or someone to love, but then panicked and left me there. When you have been around as long as I have, though, you realize that things like that are unlikely. Whoever this person was, they left me by accident. Sometimes when you drink someone, if you are not careful, you forget logic. You see dead gods and heavens and whole other worlds that aren’t there and forget that you have a task. You have to drink a person completely. If you don’t, they will resurrect and then there will be less food in the world for you. I have only encountered a few others like me, very briefly. I’m not sure how many of us are even left. We avoid each other. Or we forget.

I’ve never forgotten the marsh and the flies, though. I remember that but not much else.

I remember more when I am in New York. I’m not sure why. I don’t think it’s because I was made there or lived there in my life before. I think it’s because I don’t have to think. New York is so loud and churning and rancid. My memories come back because I am not trying to remember. I am distracted. There is space in my deleted brain and memories see their chance to slip back in.

I love the city. New York feels like a good place to turn into nothing. Whatever way I can die —and I don’t even know what that would look like — I want it to happen in New York. That sounds worse than I mean. I should rephrase that: New York would be a fine place to be swallowed by. It is a giant, comforting mouth. I could be digested in its belly for a millennium and never be bored. I don’t want to be recycled. I want to be in New York.

***

I’d been living in Alaska for a decade, in the North Slope Borough. When I want to sleep more than be awake, I always go somewhere icy. Somewhere darker. The air slows me down. A day stretches for a week. Walking suspended animation. I don’t need to eat as much where it’s cold; it curbs my hunger. I can go almost a month between feedings. Not like there was much to eat, anyway. I’d wait for people passing through — oil rig workers, soldiers, runaways — I’d find them at the bar seven miles from where I slept and watch them get drunk and follow them outside where they were pissing or throwing up and kill them there. I’d drag them out of the flood light, into a dark bank of snow off the main road through town and eat them there. Then I’d pull them out onto the ice, take their wallet, and drop them down into the blackness. Sometimes police would come; the army reserves. They’d ask questions, investigate. There would be rumors, maybe, but never for long. No one ever thought of me. No one knew I was there. Once in a while, someone would raise their hand and wave at me in vague recognition — a longtime resident in town, walking out of the pharmacy, or pizza place. I’d wave back and smile. But no one ever talked to me. I don’t think I said more than thirty words in the ten years I was there. It may have been longer than ten years; I can’t remember. But ten years feels right. In the dark months I rotated homes. Abandoned houses, a warehouse. And in the spring and summer I’d sleep through the midnight sun. I waited till the fall came and crawled out of the night once more.

The flu tore the Borough in the fall of 2025. I waited for the ambulance sirens to fade off while I slept but they never did. They wailed for a month straight. I saw bodies being retrieved from homes in bags. My neighbors. The people I watched for years; who grew up and left or stayed. Some I’d seen since they were children, then having children of their own. I watched their children die, too. The people who didn’t get sick left, taking their chances away from here. The town shuttered through the winter. I had to be smart with food. I paced myself. I couldn’t rely on passersby. No one was allowed into the town except medical personnel. They were all closely tracked and accounted for. They had people looking out for them, expecting them. They were not feasible. I had to wait for those dying in their beds at home, quarantined on order from the state. Their doors were marked with a single red slash. Infected. Nothing to be done. I made sure to be neat when I drank them. I wasn’t sloppy. I wanted to be respectful. I knew they were burying the dead outside of town. After I was finished I would add another slash on their front door. I bring their corpse to the burial site during quiet hours and dump them. No one ever noticed.

A few of the dying people, in their scalding fever haze, watched me appear above them and cried out in joy. A woman in her 60s, who I’d seen many times before shoveling snow or welding in her garage at home, clasped my hand in hers and asked if I was an angel. I told her I was.

“I’m here to take you away,” I said.

“Thank God,” she said.

One night I came across a small dog named Bruce in the middle of the empty street. He had a collar on with a phone number on small brass tag. I figured he’d wandered out of a house nearby, looking for food after his owners died. He was shivering and thin. He followed me for half a mile before I realized I wouldn’t be able to lose him, so I broke into an empty house that hadn’t had its power cut yet. There was meat in the freezer and I cooked some for Bruce and watched him eat. He devoured gratefully and afterward lapped up freezing water from the faucet. I sat down on the couch and he jumped up on my lap, facing out towards the back door that rattled in the pre-dawn wind. His ears lowered with every new gust. I decided to sleep there when I could feel the brief burst of morning light coming. I duct-taped a blanket over the small window in the bathroom and slept in the tub with Bruce in my arms. I dreamt for the first time in years.

When I woke up that night, I took Bruce out to go to the bathroom. I carried him across the front lawn and placed him on the ground where the snow was thin. As soon as I did, he took off into the street. I ran after him for a block before I realized I might be noticed, so I stopped. I watched him disappear into the dark ahead. I spent the rest of the night looking for him but he was nowhere. He was gone.

There was a week where there was another one like me in the area. I never saw them but I could feel them. I almost forgot I wasn’t the only one in the world like me until that familiar ringing noise started again and I remembered. They must have come because wherever they had been was now dead and there wasn’t any food. They smelled my desperation. My longing to stay in this place and not raise suspicion. They smelled my tidiness. My meekness, living in the shadows, careful and nervous. I’m sure it delighted them. I wasn’t a threat and we both knew that. I hated them. I let them search, scavenge. And when they were gone, the ringing stopped. I decided that if they came back, I wouldn’t hide. I would find them and destroy them.

***

The flu ran its course and the new people filled up town again. The plague had plunged the nation into a depression. No one had money, which meant more seasonal workers, which meant people more to kill. My food was steady. My shelter was not. Land was being fought over by desperate corporations. Homes of the dead had been razed and in their places cheap, institutional ranchers. An entire new subdivision. A company town. I was running out of places to hide. I knew my time there was ending. I longed for New York and the hum. I decided I would hitch my way across the country. I hadn’t done that since I was younger. Flying wasn’t an option, especially now, with a recall on IDs and passports after the president began his third term in office. The most recent election was nearly called off after a rise in domestic terrorism. After a fourth assassination attempt, he declared a national emergency and threatened to put off the election until order was restored. But still, voting happened, and still, he won. There were riots. Bombings. Not that I cared. I’d seen this happened before in other places. It was always the same. An endless loop. I never felt part of this country. I felt like a neighbor in a nearby world. I was there but not in the same place. I didn’t live. I bided time.

But my problem was my driver’s license. It was fake of course, but it had expired in the early 2000s, after 9/11 or something. I didn’t want to bother getting a new one. It was too dangerous. Driving was the best option, but I couldn’t drive myself. I needed help. I needed cover. I’d seen news reports on TVs in town about checkpoints at every state line following the election; ICE ramping up arrests and deportations of those with invalid ID. I’d find a way, though. I always did.

Over a period of three months, I auditioned drug addicts at the bar in town who I knew had cars. Most were on heroin or fentanyl. I couldn’t rely of them. I zeroed in on the few tweakers who rolled through. Tweakers love road trips and hate sunlight. It was perfect. It empted them with money, and sleeping in the day and driving at night and watching the towns and cities fall away into the mountains and deserts and yellow hills and cornfields. Tweakers love cars and hate sunlight. It was perfect. Only one committed. The rest I killed.

My companion was a gay man in his 40s named Lev with blue eyes, bad breath, and a Jeep Cherokee. He’d lived in Phoenix until a bar he worked at was raided by police, allegedly for an issue with its liquor license. Up until then, he’d heard rumors of disappearances. Arrests. He didn’t want to take his chance. He’d been sober for 12 years but decided to relapse and do meth in Alaska till things sorted itself out, whenever that would be. He left in the middle of the night and drove up from Arizona before the election. I was able to convince him that what he actually needed to do was a cross country binge before drying out in New York. I’d do some meth with him when I could.

“New York has good AA,” I said, remembering my stint of picking up people to eat at meetings.

I told him it’d be safer for gays in New York. It always was. I’d be gay again. I’d done it before. We decided to leave the next evening. We went back to the motel he was crashing in with tin foil in the windows to party once more before hitting the road. He burned through another pipe and I sucked his limp dick until he stopped trying to get hard. He started drinking beer and ripping cigarettes while listening to unremarkable music on his iPhone, placed into an empty water glass. I excused myself to the bathroom and locked the door. It was getting hard for me not to feel his hopped up heart thudding in my bones or hear the deafening sound of his blood surging through his veins. If I ate him now, I’d be stuck here for another winter. I would starve. I needed to wait till he got me to New York. I could kill them then. Or maybe I’d drop him off in front of a convent in a basket with a note that says, “God forgive me.”

I had to be zen. I rolled my head up in the dirty bathroom rug and tried to blot out the noise of his buzzing body. Eventually I slept. I dreamt of Bruce. He was sprinting ahead of me in the darkness like the night I lost him. I tried calling out after him but I couldn’t speak. I chased after him onto the ice until he disappeared and I knelt down and started to cry.

Then I dreamt of New York. I’d be there soon.

***

My cousin’s older brother died at fifteen. We were the same age and used to be close until we got to middle school and one of his friends who I had never met before asked me if I “considered myself a faggot” when I was visiting one weekend. My cousin didn’t defend me and instead I saw him smirking while he waited for porn to download on the family computer in the basement. Later, right after dinner, my dad got me early. I told my aunt I was feeling sick. My cousin didn’t say bye to me. I never visited them again. Three years later another friend who I didn’t meet accidentally shot my cousin in the neck at a party with his dad’s handgun. The kid was drunk and waving the gun around all night and my cousin tried swatting it away in the driveway and the gun went off. No one called for help for almost an hour because they were worried they’d all be implicated. My cousin drowned in his own blood on the damp cement. I didn’t cry at his funeral but I made up for it by letting his sister, who was two when he died, FaceTime me against my will when she needed to vent. I told her that social media would always be an unstable economy because it threatens politicians and billionaires and that she should leverage her talents into trying theatre or other performing arts. She told me I was being insensitive and sounded out of touch and how that wouldn’t be possible anyway because the two heads of the theatre department died during last year’s flu season and that the university wasn’t putting on any shows for the remainder of the year out of respect. Then I told her I had to go because my building’s fire alarm was going off. She said she didn’t hear an alarm and I hung up. I apologized for hanging up over text. I said my WiFi was bad. She didn’t reply.

I let out a fart I’d been holding in since I left the office and wandered over to my roommate Aaron’s room. Aaron worked for a production company and currently on his way back from Berlin. He grew up in Yonkers and didn’t go to college and was very involved with a queer-friendly synagogue somewhere in Chelsea. We met through his ex and had lived with each other for three years. We didn’t really hang out, but I felt close to him, and I think he felt close to me. We understood each other. We honored each other's boundaries. We talked to each other when it felt right. Occasionally, we would watch Real Housewives together. Or when there was a presidential debate. Sometimes he would cook and leave food out for me, like an offering. But there was never any pressure. Once on a random night in the first year, we both came home from the bars around the same time. He had half of an eight ball left and we did blow in his room and smoked cigarettes and listened to Ray of Light by Madonna. When it started getting light out outside, we showed each other our dick pic files in our phones and for a few moments it felt like we might fuck, but we didn’t. We both went to sleep. When I woke up, it was close to noon, and he had already left for a workout class. He invited me to go to a day party at Le Bain later. I met him there and didn’t recognize anyone. introduced me to his friends, who were nice enough, but I didn’t want to seem clingy with him so I gave him space and sort of wandered around and eventually started talking to a butterface dentist with 2% body fat who bought me drinks. He asked me if I wanted to do G with him, which I had done once a few years prior at an after party with my friend Corey who went to rehab twice but didn’t stay sober and eventually moved back to his family’s palatial home in Connecticut and lost touch with me except for an occasional, strangely aggressive Instagram DM.

I knew I shouldn’t mix G with alcohol but suddenly I found myself with the good doctor in the corner of the crowded deck outside, looking at the golden sky over New Jersey across the river, as his dropper hovered over my drink. A little bit later I started feeling sick and the dentist brought me into a stall in the restroom and started sucking my limp dick for seven minutes before giving up and leaving me there. I sat on the toilet and passed out for god knows how long until a loud twink discovered me and I woke up to him screaming that I was dead until it became a scene.

I was removed by hotel staff and came to in a cab on the way back to Bedstuy to a barrage of texts from Aaron. He’d heard what happened and was rushing home to meet me. He helped me throw up until the swirl wore off. He ordered me broth and we watched the Kardashians till I felt safe enough to go to bed without worrying that I would aspirate in my sleep and die. We didn’t talk about it the next day. I didn’t go out for a month, and I successfully avoided seeing Aaron’s friends until a few of them came over to watch RuPaul’s Drag Race a few weeks later on my final monastic Friday. They were friendly. I watched with them for twenty minutes, listening to their sporadic commentary which was sort of entertaining but all sounded the same and then had a vision of myself waking up in the stall at The Standard and knew they’d had a recap convo about in whatever faggot group chat they send memes to daily and I suddenly wanted to die. I stood up and grabbed my coat, quietly telling Aaron that I forgot I was meeting up with some friends at the bar. They all threw out their goodbyes, now prolonged in wine soaked exaggeration. I closed the door behind me and waited for a few moments outside in the hallway and thought I heard some snickering and couldn’t bear to confirm it was real so I walked quickly to the gay bar a few blocks away and ordered a shot of whiskey and an IPA and felt butch. I texted my friend Conor who I hadn’t seen in a few weeks and told him to meet me. I watched the typing ellipsis in the text box start and stop about six times before he finally decided on “I’m upstate babe!” I never understood what upstate meant. “Upstate” can’t help but look passive aggressive. Whether he was actually there or not (his boyfriend who I was afraid of had just purchased a small home right off the main drag in Rhinebeck), I assumed he was lying and ashamed to be seen with me after I roofied myself. I didn’t write back.

I then texted my college best friend Alexis, who lived in the East Village. We both moved to New York after graduation and in the final months of senior year, we had talked about getting a place together but her cousin let her live with her in Harlem and soon after, saw each other once a quarter, if that. We were both theatre ghouls in college; she, a tried and true hag. But at one of our quickly dwindling dinner dates, she told me that through therapy, she’d decided to make cultivating more female friendships a priority. She invited me to a girls’ weekend in the Hamptons at the family home of her friend, Jess. Or was it Lindsay. I stayed for one night and then faked food poisoning and took the train back the next morning. She never asked me if I got back to the city safely, or if I was feeling better, which bothered me, even though I lied. We quietly stopped speaking soon after that. A slow burner demise. The cleanest death.

Eventually I unfollowed her on all platforms and didn’t talk to her for five years until she invited me to her 30th birthday dinner. It was at Via Carota with about twenty people I had never met before, including a guy she was desperately trying to date. I was seated near the end of the table, far away from Alexis and forced to make small talk with a newly married couple who had just moved to Scarsdale. The wife drank four martinis and complained about a woman at her job who was more misogynistic than any man she’d ever worked with. The husband seemed bi and kept making eye contact with me. His wife blacked out and I would have probably tried to hit on him but I was on my best behavior with Alexis.

Eventually, she made her way over to me and we talked for the last hour, drinking wine and getting wistful about the past. We ended up going to a horrible nightclub in the Meatpacking District and then to an after party at The Spectrum in East Williamsburg where we did MDMA and danced in front of the smoke machine with the radical fairies and didn’t leave till 8 am. We were inseparable again till her dad had a stroke in the fall of 2020 and she went home to Pennsylvania to help her mom take care of him. She moved back to New York in 2023 and our friendship continued whenever she wasn’t experiencing depression. She joined a hipster church in Midtown shortly after Trump’s second term began and made it her personality. I went with her to church service twice and the second time I actually started crying during the climax of the closing song by the post-rock band performing on the altar. I believed in God for two minutes and then felt stupid for being there and left without telling Alexis.

A few weeks later at sushi she revealed to me that she had been having an emotional sexting affair with her married pastor who had sleeve tattoos and a tiny nose ring until the previous week, when she stayed late to help him clean and he ate her out on his office desk. She said she’d never been happier and I snort-laughed and she asked me what was so funny and I apologized and said “Just be careful.” She got up without saying a word and left the restaurant. I texted her later apologizing and she told me sometimes she wondered if I was autistic. She and the pastor fucked for a few months until his wife found out and started telling everyone who would listen that Alexis was stalking them. Alexis stopped going to church and we resumed our friendship. She would go dark for weeks at a time, so when I texted her to meet me that night I wasn’t surprised that she turned me down. But when she added that she wanted to develop healthy connections with straight men for the first time and how that wouldn’t happen by tagging along with me to gay bars, I told her that felt like a reach. She told me I was being rude and that I would just end up ditching her when I found a guy to go home with like every other time and I told her she was weird for holding that against me and then she said it was weird that I was at a bar alone on a Friday night and I told her I had just spent a month not going out and she sent clap emojis and told me congratulations and then I told her she was being a cunt and she told me that there’s nothing sadder than an old gay who drinks too much. Then she blocked my number. I never saw her again.

Alexis died during the Flu of 2025, the same one that took the department heads at my cousin’s college. Her funeral was in Pittsburgh, shortly after the flu burned out. It was better attended than I thought it would be, and I knew Alexis would be happy about that. I saw a few people from college –an evil gay named Mark who lived in my hall freshman year who was in my same social circle for all four years but never acknowledged me until our graduation weekend. He had gone bald and gotten married and had a baby through a surrogate who was currently back at the hotel with their nanny. His husband was tall and bland but nice. They lived in Society Hill in Philly and told me to come down for a weekend and stay with them. “We have lots of room,” Mark said. I told him that’d be fun and Mark gave me his number and texted me a few times after, sometimes veering into vaguely flirty territory, which I never reciprocated.

At the funeral luncheon, I made sure to find Alexis’ mom before I caught my flight back to New York. I apologized to her and her husband, who was in a wheelchair nearby, staring off with his mouth hanging open. I told her that Alexis had been a big part of my life for so long and that she helped make me who I am today. I didn’t exactly mean that, but it was kind of true, I guess. She took my hand and thanked me and said that Alexis had always felt the same about me. As we held hands, I suddenly realized that she had no idea who I was. I’d gotten to know them a little during college; they treated our friends to some dinners at the one expensive restaurant in town. We forget things when we’re sad. This woman had a lot to be sad about. But it felt less like a trauma-wrought memory blank, and more like a gracious fib. I was not someone of consequence in her daughter’s reality. I was just a random mourner. An acquaintance. I nodded and took an Uber to the airport. I got drunk on the short flight and quietly cried for Alexis and the friendship we may have never even had.

I was supposed to have work drinks back in the city and was already running late. I’d left work at lunch and came home to nap, but instead of sleeping I saw the kindly twink who lives on my block. I ate his ass and he made me step on his face with my foot while he jerked off. I came on his back and almost laughed when I realized he had “DREAM BOY” tattooed on his right cum gutter. How had I not noticed that before? I thought. Afterward he asked me if I was going to the protest. I didn’t know what he was talking about. The one in Union Square, he said. It’s a counter protest. What is it countering?, I asked. I don’t know, he said. I wanted to ask “Do you know anything?” but instead I said “I think I’ll pass.” I don’t know anything either, really. Especially not about him. I do know that he works from home so he’s always 200 ft away. But I don’t know his name. I left his place and blocked him on Grindr. I usually block every guy I talked to on Grindr, which I used to feel guilty about until I realized I didn’t care.

There was a plane crash in Washington D.C. last month. An American Airlines flight collided with a Black Hawk helicopter while landing over the Potomac. It exploded, broke in half, and sank into the river. No survivors. A few days later a plane nosedived into a neighborhood in North Philadelphia. No survivors. One person on the ground died, too. A few weeks later a plane disappeared over the Alaskan tundra. They found it shortly after. No survivors.

They’re gutting the FAA. They’re gutting the government. They’re blaming Gay Mayor. They want him to pay for his gay transportation crimes. The gays are ruining air travel. So are trans people and black people and women and immigrants. Maybe they want us to be afraid to fly. They want us to be so afraid that when Elon takes over the FAA we’ll be so paralyzed that it won’t feel worth it to fight. Maybe it’s Big Train wanting a comeback. Or maybe they want just want us on the ground for whatever comes next. They don’t want us to go anywhere. No one is allowed to leave the US. No one is allowed to leave Canada. They want us right where they can see us.

No one can fault anyone for being afraid to get on a plane right now. No one wants to plummet into the ocean, or into a field. No one wants to explode in the clouds and fly out of their seat and fall into the night. No one wants to be identified by teeth or loose DNA. Almost every time I fly I accept my death. Well, I think, it’s been a good run. I clutch a rock my husband found in a river in Montana, or a chip I got in AA. I turn to mysticism while flying. I reconfirm myself as a Catholic. I flirt with 90s Kabbalah. If I am not fretting, the plane will go down. The responsibility to keep myself and everyone else around me alive rests on my shoulders. It is my cross to bear.

I remember a few times when I flew with my family as a teen, my mom would look over at me as the plane revved up to take off and sort of shrug and say, “At least we’re together!” Her Irish fatalism on full display. She means it, though. She’s probably the best flyer I know, aside from my husband. She loves being on a plane. When my mom is on a plane, she’s on vacation, and if she and her family happen to die together, so be it. Vacation is vacation. I haven’t reached that level of monk yet. I’ve gotten better, sure. Especially since getting sober. Even when I would take Klonopin and drink exactly eight Blue Moons on some cross country Jet Blue flight and felt like my head was resting on my shoulder like a parrot and my neck simply a wide open mouth, I was still afraid. I envisioned my body resting in a hanger in a black bag, among my fellow doomed flyers, waiting for my loved ones to be shuttled over from whatever airport hotel ballroom the airline had assembled them in.

I try to avoid flying at night. Planes feel like they were meant to disappear at night. Disappearing is a fate worse than death. I think about Air France 447, alone in a storm in the middle of the Atlantic between Africa and South America, vanishing from radar at 2 in the morning, only to be found two years later on the ocean floor. I think about Malaysia 370, the pilot radioing some time after midnight and never again, the plane pinging for hours into the next morning, passengers unconscious or dead in their seats from hypoxia, food carts rolling back and forth down the aisles, cell phones ringing, before disappearing forever into the violent expanse of the South Indian Ocean. Or maybe it just fell through a rip in this world and was taken somewhere else where fear and pain aren’t quantifiable because they are too small. The plane continuing its journey to the center it’ll never reach. Traveling deeper and deeper into the void.

Nothing was ever the same after that plane disappeared. It was the beginning of whatever timeline we’re in now. Everything shifted. Everyone disoriented. Everyone searched. They asked us to! That’s how futile it was. Courtney Love thought she found its oil slicks on Google Earth.

People mocked her but it was a valid theory as anyone else’s. I remember feeling comforted that she was thinking about it, too. I didn’t feel alone. Courtney stood with me. The pilot was blamed; a disgruntled employee committing suicide but not wanting to go alone. Others said the plane was stolen by Russia so Putin could confuse the world around the time he invaded Crimea. Landed in the desert of Kazakhstan. KGB things. A plane door and other parts have washed up on the Eastern shores of Africa, reigniting hope that was eventually ruled out. Recently I’ve seen a clearly deep fake video banging around Reddit of three UFOs circling a 777 that’s alleged to be MH370. I believe in aliens, I just don’t believe they did this. Whatever made this flight disappear is far more terrifying than evil. It’s ambivalence. It is the void.

Right now I can only conceive of traveling long distances on horseback. I don’t even want to get in my car. I am certain a plane will crash into my fuckass Ford Fusion. My Narc car. Serves me right for driving it. We won’t have cars soon, anyway. We’ll be forced to rely on covered wagons. I can get into that: my pioneer woman tea, minus the manifest destiny. I’m just trying to get to CVS for my SSRIs before those are taken away from us, too. Empires fall slowly and then all at once, right? We’re in our lead poisoning era. Unrelenting incompetence in the name of nationalism, or whatever.

The rust-sunlight blared through the chalk-clouds below as people left their cars in the street in droves, some holding their dogs or cats or children, moving away. A careful, intentional gait—somewhere between jogging and a power-walk—maintaining distance between themselves and the avalanche of fire pouring down from the mountains into the streets to eat the houses and the trees and everything else. Reporters in masks hurried alongside them, sticking microphones in their faces to ask them where they were doing. Some ignored. Some tried to answer but couldn’t and kept going. One woman, with her husband and their muzzled dog, did reply.

“To the ocean,” she said flatly and sort of shrugged before walking off.

It felt primal. When there is heat, go to the water.

Bulldozers parted the abandoned cars to make way for firetrucks. I watched the smoke rom our deck until it got dark, and I could see the flames lapping up over the western hills, and behind the Sunset Strip. Flames along the mountain ridge, spiking in the scalding gusts.

“It’s the sunset,” my husband said, unconvinced the flames could be visible from Hollywood.

Then he looked out through binoculars and saw them. The winds got worse and we went inside and heard about the fire in Altadena, how fast it had spread in only an hour. We saw elderly people from a retirement home wheeled into a 7-Eleven parking lot on their beds by their nurses while their hair blew in the horror winds, the embers blowing down the mountainside into downtown Altadena. We went to sleep—our dog between us. We listened to the windows rattle and and that dreadful whistle down the empty hallway outside our door.

When we woke up we saw the fires had grown in the night; the west and east. We went into the Valley to check on my husband’s studio and climbed up on the roof with our panting dog and saw the firestorms meet to form a smoke ring around the city, along the ridge divide. It was dusk at 8 am.

We went home and stayed inside and watched the news and downloaded the WatchDuty app and waited for alerts and checked Instagram and saw the posts begin to trickle in— first scattered and then ceaseless. Friends and friends of friends who’d lost their homes or had to flee. Flickering stars across the city until Los Angeles became a constellation of pain. We saw photos of the Palisades. Neighborhood after neighborhood gutted and leveled. Abandoned cars, burnt and hollowed out, still littered the streets where they were left. They were ancient now. It had been a century since the previous day. Then it was dusk again — actual dusk — and my husband shouted for me while I was in the bathroom. I ran out to see him standing on our balcony, his jaw dropped.

“There’s a fire,” he said, and he pointed to the hill behind our building.

A fresh, roaring plume had sprouted up from the brush. Runyon Canyon had lit up red. And for a second we stood and took photos in silence — our dog watching from inside with his head cocked— and then the texts started. Friends who’d gotten alerts, asking if we were OK. Telling us to leave.

“It has a name already!” my best friend texted. “The Sunset Fire!”

We’d repurposed our earthquake bag with fresh stock the night before, and my husband immediately grabbed it.

“We’re leaving,” he said.

“Let’s just wait a second,” I said.

A part of me didn’t want to leave because then it would be real. I wanted to watch it and pretend it was far enough away, like the plume to the west. Then I heard the sirens and saw the helicopters and looked down at my dog — his tail wagging and mouth open in a desperate smile —and I looked at my husband, afraid for the first time since I’ve known him. I knew it was time to go. I grabbed my Lexapro, my Propecia and Buspar and wet wipes for our dog and a single, giant bottle of contact solution even though I don’t wear contacts anymore because I got LASIK. I followed my husband into the elevator and when it opened on the first floor, a tall gay who lives a few floors above us, whose name I don’t know and who I’ve never actually had a conversation with but have seen on Grindr and always see coming back from the gym, was standing there. He clocked our bags and sighed.

“So, you guys are just, like, leaving town?” He asked, annoyed.

We said nothing and then the doors closed. In the parking garage below our building, we saw neighbors in their cars, speeding around the corners. Before we even left the garage, still beneath the earth, the emergency alert suddenly blared on our phones. “Evacuation Order. Level 3. GO.” I wanted to find the faggot from the elevator and scream, “Yeah! We’re leaving!” at him but then I considered that I may never see him, or the ciggy lady who lives with her weird adult son who always reminds me that whenever she sees me I’m staring at my phone, or my apartment, again —the first apartment I ever lived with a boyfriend in, the boyfriend who became my husband; where our dog came to live with us and where I rotted through a pandemic in and tried quitting smoking and got addicted to eating frozen grapes instead and gained 40 pounds. That’s it, I thought.

I pictured our building collapsing into flames and the fire spreading out into Hollywood and devouring the rest of the city. I had my man, though. And my dog. And my Propecia. I would live.

On Hollywood Blvd, the traffic was already bumper to bumper, we lurched forward as more and more people holding duffle bags and backpacks, ran down into the street or into their cars, and joined the exodus. Looky-loos jammed the side streets, wanting to catch a glimpse of the burning canyon. I held my dog in my lap and rolled the window down and felt the heat from the fire, two blocks away.

We saw a car driving down the wrong side of the road to beat the caravan heading onto the 101. We drove to the Valley again, where my parents-in-laws had fled down from Laurel Canyon, and we sat with them and my brother-in-law in a restaurant in Studio City, on Ventura— people calmly ate, seemingly pretending that a Hellmouth hadn’t opened up just over the hill. We watched livestreams of the LAFD, now in helicopters since the winds had died down, crushing the Sunset Fire with water drops. Each drop, thrilling and erotic. I suddenly understood football. I swelled with pride for this city that I often despise and felt the urge to run through the restaurant with my teeth gritted, tearing my shirt off and falling to my knees while screaming. Instead I went to the restroom where it took me over a minute to piss and I felt old and certain that everyone in Los Angeles County was going to suffocate in our sleep from the smoke.

We left dinner and made our way back over the hill. The Cahuenga Pass was closed. So were parts of Mulholland. We made our way up Laurel Canyon but realized the other half of the hill was blocked off by police. So, we went West, towards the horror-inferno currently razing Malibu. We cut through Wonderland and my husband —a born Angeleno and molecularly confident at navigating the city—suddenly panicked that we were heading to an evacuation zone, right as another alert blasted our phones. I pictured us burning to death in our Volvo, trapped in a wave of Runyon fire that had somehow leapt across the West Hollywood hills. We wordlessly made our way back up to Mulholland, and back down into the Valley, finding our way back into Hollywood.

The Sunset Fire dimmed, but our apartment building was closed, so we checked into a hotel in West Hollywood—too tired to flee south or to the desert where so many friends had gone. The hotel filled up in minutes, mostly from people who’d fled the Palisades and Mali. I talked to a couple in their 60s from the west side who had been there since Tuesday and didn’t know if their house was still there and were packing up to checkout so they could try and see if they could get into their neighborhood and then saw the Sunset Fire had started and checked back in.

I watched our dog shit on the astroturf outside and I realized I’d forgotten poop bags and asked a gay couple nearby if they had them and they said “We forgot them.” Everyone forgot their shit bags. The air was burnt and horrible but still as I'd ever felt the air in LA be; tiny bits of ash fell and my dog whimpered at the shadows. Upstairs we showered and scrolled and saw a new fire had broken out where we had been earlier, in Studio City. A house had caught fire. Neighbors stood outside with KCAL, their faces lit up by the glow. There were theories of downed power lines and arson—a coordinated effort to terrorize and spread destruction, or simply firebugs taking advantage of the wind. A petition demanding the mayor to resign started popping up. So did GoFundMes. We went to sleep hearing sirens in the distance.

The next morning, the Sunset Fire was almost completely contained, and we were allowed back in our building. We decided we would stay. Maybe we were Stockholmed. I felt more connected to LA than I ever have. The bar is low. But right now it was my forever city. We watched local news and season three of Sex and the City. We got more evacuation alerts, accidentally sent to everyone across LA county, three times over the next 24 hours. Constant fretting, constant paralysis. Someone who I don’t know informed me I spread misinformation when I shared a widely circulated post on Instagram about the mayor cutting funding for the LAFD. I took the post down. I admitted that I hadn’t read up on it and should have researched before sharing it. I asked her if she lived in LA and she said she lived in Boston.

That night the Palisades Fire shifted east, heading towards the 405 like high tide. Mandeville Canyon was evacuated, then the rest of Brentwood and Encino. The Valley wasn’t safe. If it jumped the 405, it would be everywhere. It would come towards us. We could see the orange glow behind the hill again. We had become haunted lighthouse keepers, staring out at the horizon for ships in danger.

In the morning the news was better. The fire department had doused the advancing flames into submission. No forward movement. We watched the wet pockets of smoldering earth fizzle into the night; the retardant gleaming red in magic hour on the hillsides. The next 48 hours were videos of goat herds evacuating in the darkness with fire in the distance, confused mountain lions with their cubs. Dogs reuniting with sobbing owners and water and canned food drop-offs. I considered including a pack of cigarettes. Surely someone would need a smoke. They didn’t make the cut.

There’s blaming of billionaires and lesbian fire chiefs and empty reservoirs. There’s decency and giving. There are dozens dead and dozens missing. Cadaver dogs combing through charred ruins. Celebrities losing their homes. Celebrities getting yelled at for sharing GoFundMes. There is scamming and rent gouging and people dressed like firefighters robbing from still-evacuated homes in the Palisades — the homes that are still standing. There are dumpster fires in parking lots and people setting off fireworks. Last night we heard them—someone had shot them into the hillside a block from us. We went out on our balcony and waited for the smell of smoke or plume that never came. Our neighbor above us asked if we had heard the fireworks, too. Yes, we said. And then I apologized to her, realizing this was the second time in four days that she’d seen me standing on my balcony in my underwear.

We’re on high alert again as new Santa Anas are sweeping through the county; a brush fire broke out in Ventura last night. More Santa Anas are possible next week. Masks are suggested as air quality alerts continue. 9/11 air.

I cried last night for the first time since this all started. I cried for my friends who’ve lost their homes, or haven’t been able to go back to them. I cried for people I don’t know and the firefighters and the tourists still coming to our city to take photos on the Walk of Fame. I cried for the dead. I cried for the time before the fires. I cried for my husband and our dog. I cried for myself.

I’m depressed. I’m grateful. I feel like I’m having a drug comedown. My addict brain latched onto existing in intensity for days on end. There were times, although fleeting, that the calamity felt as natural as it did uncanny. Today I dropped laundry off at the laundromat. I bought a candle. I saw George Clooney and Rande Gerber on a Casamingos truck and a girl getting headshots taken against the blinding white wall of the hipster church next to my building. The sky was blue and gold and clear today. I’ve decided it’s the clearest sky I’ve ever seen in my life. I will give myself that lie as a gift. I will never read Joan Didion again.

I’ve been busy, you see! I promise I do things. I live in Los Angeles and do things with my days, just like everyone else. Famously a city of people with jobs. Something has shifted in LA, I’ll say that much. And for the better. I mean that. I wouldn’t say there’s been a vibe shift because I am an adult, but it does feel like there’s been a reckoning here. Collectively so. Like we all stewed on it in our sleep each night. Somewhere, in our furthest, interstellar psyches, we made LA good again. Well, it’s not actually good. I don’t know if it ever was. But it’s beautiful. I feel certain in that. It doesn’t feel like we all are all walking around in the early stages of carbon monoxide poisoning anymore. At least for now. Or maybe I've simply had a reckoning. I have reckoned with California and accepted it. Accepted is better than resigned. Resigned is better than disappeared. To disappear into California is a terrible thing. It’s my greatest fear. But I have simply come to terms with the fact that I live here and that’s okay. I had a brief and seismic fixation on moving back to New York this fall. My husband, too, shockingly. He’d told me countless times that he’d never live there, but there we were in Manhattan in late September, seeing the sun on every street corner. Our burn to pack up our dog and move east—mostly colored by a genuinely euphoric week in Fire Island that same trip— petered out quietly over the next month. It wasn’t New York, it was LA. In this essay I will share How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love LA. I’m kidding. I don’t love LA, but I know it’s my home.

Out of everywhere I’ve ever been, here I am. When I look up into the hills at night —their silhouettes snaking around the city; the light pollution from the valley beyond it spilling over just enough for you to pretend you’re not alone — I love it.

Yesterday I went to a screening of “The Brutalist” alone and saw some nice gays I know socially before it started. I accidentally knocked one of their popcorns to the ground while gesticulating and didn’t immediately want to kill myself and felt comforted by progress. Still, I bought him a new popcorn because I want to be beloved. I liked the movie but there was an intermission and it threw me off. I started getting anxious and then left 20 minutes after the “second act” of the movie began. I drove home feeling like a simpleton. I’ll watch the rest when it’s streaming like a good little pig.

Last night when I was driving to Rite Aid at 10 pm and a coyote ran across the street in front of my car on an otherwise empty Hollywood Blvd, I thought, ‘Cute!’ At that same Rite Aid where most of the shelves are cleared out in the crushing avalanche of Amazon and near-bankruptcy, and the shelves that hold things are kept behind anti-theft cases and look like museum archives, I had to ring a bell so an employee can unlock it for a pack of Mucinex that they don’t trust me not to steal, and I followed that same employee on a death march to the register where I wasasked to show my ID before purchasing it because some customers “abuse Mucinex,” I thought ‘Only in LA!’

Rite Aid only exists in LA. I’ve decided to make that fact. Don’t tell me otherwise.

I learned to stop worrying about LA and start worrying about the end of the world. I don’t think the world is ending, but I do think it’s sputtering. People always talk about post-apocalypse, but what about perma-apocalypse? Where the world is always ending but can’t commit to doing it. It just keeps going. It edges eternity and oblivion at once, until nothing makes sense anymore and no one believes anything or anyone and we go insane and decide to pull the plug ourselves and finally cum. Humanity desperately needs to cum at all times and can’t. Humanity is chaffed and in a compression wrist brace from fapping in vain. ICBMs don’t help. Neither do drones spraying thermite. Or bird flu. Or elderly Congress members falling down marble staircases. Or mass starvation. Or centibillionaires with 12 children. Or Boeing. Or Bethenny Frankel. But I don’t think this is the end, which is almost worse. I think it’s the beginning of the beginning of the end that will never come. But if it’s never really over, it can’t be that bad. Right? Didn’t Katy Perry say that? Where is Katy Perry? I saw her at the Charli XCX concert hanging over the railing and taking videos of the performances on her phone. It made me kind of sad. I want things to be good for her. I do. I know she’s friends with Lauren Sanchez and Jeff Bezos, though, so she definitely has a spot in their bunker when the time comes. I guess I’m not that worried for her. She probably did Ibogaine therapy in Mexico during the holidays and is feeling better about things.

Celebrities are so random now. The Golden Globes were last night, and everyone seemed like they were on Ketamine. Aside from a few people, no one really said anything when they accepted their awards. Some made coded illusions to the incoming Trump presidency. Others referred to “turbulent” matters around the world, or something. Network-approved murk. “I know people are scared.” Okay. Thank you. The future is murk. The end of the world is vague.

I just wanted to say that. It felt right. In reality, though, I would love it. A dyke for president. My president is a dyke. The efficiency, the steely corniness. Exacting her agenda of solid dinner plans. The country isn’t ready to be functional. It’s not ready to be proficient. For now, we’ll get brat. The truth is, anyone who wants to be president is not brat. They are fundamentally rotten. But, like every other time, there are no other options. So Vice President Harris must be brat. The less bad of the other two: facelift pawpaw in a sleeping cap and dry-drunk nana with a martyr complex. We will watch the lesser bad candidate do some good and lie a lot and disappoint us like every president before her. The time honored American tradition. I was relieved when Biden dropped out, and felt a pang of hope. I still do, I guess.

Though I’m already a little wary of “weird.” I just saw the Harris campaign include a dril tweet in a statement about Trump’s useless, soupy press conference this afternoon. There is a thing as too much brat. One can be too brat. One can be too online. One can fly too close to the sun. I’m sure in the long-run it won’t matter. People are ultimately more sick of chaos than they are an overly-savvy social media presence. I believe Kamala will win. I will vote for her. I wish we didn’t have to donate to politicians. They should donate to all of us. Donate to me, in specific. Give me money. I won’t spend it on anything dangerous. I am past that. I just celebrated my eighth year of sobriety on Sunday, you see. I am a responsible faggot. Responsible faggots are brat, too. I can still shake my bussy and tits. I can death drop for Kamala. I can werk for my inalienable rights.

And so began my eighth year of not being a dumb ass drunk bitch. My eighth year of not being a cokey slut whore. My eighth year of not wetting my bed three times a week or not sleeping for 72 hours. I turned 8 on Sunday and felt sad for exactly an hour. Not sad because I miss the party. I never want to go back. I know if I go back, I will die. I do miss the newness of early sobriety.

When I was first sober and would walk into Panera at lunch during work, still self-conscious of the two black eyes and a broken nose from my last night of drinking, everything looked nuclear bright. Everything felt thrilling. I couldn’t believe I wasn’t strung out or fast forwarding through my work day so I could race home to Williamsburg to buy my nightly wine at one of the two liquor stores I went to on the same block. One was bougie and the other was a florescent liquor den that looked an AutoZone —its Russian owners would smoke cigarettes inside. I’d alternate between these two places every other night of the work week so they didn’t judge me for coming in too much. Although I’d usually just end up going to the Russian one because I once had a limp 5 am threesome inside a literal storage unit in Bushwick with the cashier at the fancier option. I didn’t want to look him in the eye as I bought post-work boxed merlot each night. Active addiction is ambient humiliation.

But on my sober anniversary on Sunday, I felt sad because time is too fast. Time is terrifying and sneering. Nearly a decade dug out of the earth, though, and my days are older and happier and more boring than I could ever imagine. Boring isn’t monotony. Boring isn’t stale. Boring is brat. Kamala is boring, which means Kamala is, in fact, brat, which means I am brat. I think my brain is dying. I don’t need a freshwater amoeba to swim up my nose and into my skull for that to happen. I just need to stay online.

The song reminds us that even in this post-Roe vs Wade reality, women still run this town. It’s a song about women being lady bosses of their own destinies, who form LLCs weekly, are friends with Jessica Seinfeld and fly helicopters. What I’m saying is, “WOMAN’S WORLD” is about Lauren Sanchez. “Sexy! Confident!” she sings in a tinny cazoo voice. “So intelligent,” she adds. Mama, kudos for saying that. For spilling. “WW” is being drawn and quartered by most music critics and Gay Twitter. It is, obviously, not good. But I also don’t think it’s as horrific as everyone is saying. I think it’s fun. I do feel dumber having listened to it, but that is how I feel after hearing any of Katy’s songs. That is a true gift. I won’t pretend to be a scholar of song, but if lobotomy music is an art form, Katy Perry is a maestro.

I’m not going to blame Katy Perry for the fall of our Republic. There will be no I saw Goody Perry dancing with the Devil. She will not be accused of drying up the town well or blighting the village crops on my watch. One can’t help but laugh at the unfortunate timing of the song’s release, during President Biden’s “proof of life” press conference yesterday evening — his first in a staggering eight months. As Biden prattled on about NATO (literally who cares), bearing his veneers in vindictive sneer-smiles and barely concealing his mask-off contempt for the media, Katy said, “Girl, it’s time.” She then unleashed her anthem for white women who post Facebook statuses everywhere. The rest was herstory. I root for Katy, I really do. I’d like to think Katy Perry and I would be friends. She seems like a fun hang. I want to smoke cigs with her (sorry, but I just know she steams ‘em) and talk to her and Orlando Bloom about trauma and bunkers. They’ve gotta have a bunker. That, or they’ve secured a spot in Jeff Bezos’s.

I do believe that regardless of the song’s hollow battle cry, Katy Perry really does love women. Even when she teams up with a certain Scandanavian music producer/sex pest/abuser of women for a song about women “not going anywhere” — I still don’t know what that means, by the way. Where are women going? Maybe she feels she’s thwarting the Lady Rapture. Sticking it to Jesus who plans on opening up the heavens for only his favorite SheEOs.

Katy Perry is a tried and true NextDoor App Liberal who rides for equality but will vote for Rick Caruso and accept a free Cybertruck from Elon Musk. Regardless of her politics that feel natural to someone worth half a billion dollars, I know she means well. She’s a Maximalist Democrat, born in the sorrow of the Great Recession to make fun songs about diet bisexuality, teenage agony and ecstasy, etc. Comparing faggots to fireworks. 15 years into her career, though, she can’t help but exorcise the faith-based from her sound. Before she was on Warped Tour, she was a Christian singer. And she still sounds like one. She is the daughter of a Santa Barbara pentecostal pastor. That strange brand of Magic Hour Christianity that one cannot fully comprehend unless they live in California. A spirituality infused with marine layer and smog and proxy to celebrity. Katy Perry really is the ultimate California Girl, as she informed us years back. I can’t wait for “WOMAN’S WORLD” to be used during fellow Cali girl Kamala Harris’s inevitable presidential run. I am choosing to live in WOMAN’S WORLD until November. Let me pretend.

I didn’t understand how conservative this state is until I moved here. Really, other than the Bay Area and parts of Los Angeles, we are a Red state. The Newsmax-ass ghost story of 40 million godless Democrats living in LGBT socialist piggery is false. Sure, the state is becoming post-apocalyptic. But that’s not because of liberalism. It’s because no one has money. Except for Rick Caruso. And Katy Perry. And climate change rain cracking roads that no one wants to fix and fires in the Central Valley and driverless cars circling homeless encampments and meth and Fentanyl and school boards in Riverside County banning critical race theory and transness. Los Angeles, on the other hand, hasn’t swung in any kind of political direction. It’s neither a good nor bad thing. It is futile to try and describe just how bizarre LA has become in the last few years, especially. Last night while Biden defended his corpse status to a room of confused reporters, a prop plane circled over my neighborhood trailing a sky banner that said “PRINCE HARRY: INVESTIGATE MUMI’S DEATH.”

Los Angeles is a city of nine million people yelling “Why is no one talking about this?” into an empty room. No one is talking about this because no one knows the answer.

Yesterday really felt like the Last Fourth of July. Aside from the obvious circumstances currently wrapping its shaky, senile hands around the throat of our nation, it feels like America is drunk-walking home from a barbecue at dusk. America is fumbling through her huge handbag for her keys before getting into her apartment without closing the front door. America is stomp-walking into the kitchen, to the fridge, where she heats up two-day-old pasta and eats it on the kitchen floor. America then showers and gives herself a blowout. Twenty minutes later, America has passed out in bed wearing the bizarre outfit she assembled to go out to the bars later. Excuse my doom-drama. I’m sure there will be a Fourth of July next year, but yesterday things just felt overcooked and weird.

July 4th in L.A. is always weird, though. There are firework shows happening in every part of the city. There is no cohesion. It’s not like New York, where the barges fire their best into the skies above the Hudson and East Rivers, and you can hear the applause and awe across the rooftops around you. The fireworks in LA do not compliment each other. They don’t acknowledge. It looks like how it feels to drive in traffic here. Everyone only looks up from their phones long enough to cut into your lane in front of you. The lonely vastness of this place is made more lonely, more terrible and more beautiful. The cum spurts of explosions —interrupted by LAPD helicopters — trickle into the sky from downtown to Century City, to the ocean and LAX. At a certain point in the night, you stop seeing the flashes and sparkles and just hear them, reverberating off of the rolling hills that divide the city and the Valley. Ping-ponging indefinitely. It sounds like war. I remembered the strange, one-off booms at night during the summer of 2020, when we were all fairly certain the police were the source. Sonic punishment for the protests, keeping the city on edge.

Last night, my husband and I sat on our balcony with our dog who looked wronged and contemptuous of the noise. We drank non-alcoholic beers and smoked cigarettes, watching reckless fireworks shot from a house party in the hills nearby. We watched our neighbor’s drone they fly once in a while. The drone with its terrible whir and flashing green and red lights, rose in front of us as we stared at it blankly, then zoomed above our building for the remainder of our time outside. The only time I wish I owned a gun is when this drone appears. I would shoot it down and smile as it fell silently onto the piss-soaked sidewalk below.

I’ve seen other drones around since COVID began; police drones blinking in silence as they surveil the worsening conditions of the neighborhood. Other drones that Netflix uses for exterior shots of Selling Sunset, which occasionally films in our building. The show’s central teeny twin real estate moguls converted the top floor of our building into two giant, sad penthouse units —banking on the building’s supernatural top floor views, despite its location. The units have sat un-purchased for nearly two years. A true LA story. That’s Tinseltown, baby! I’ve seen one or both Oppenheim Twins before in the lobby of our building, talking at the guy who works the front desk, probably about a zoning thing, or something else the front desk guy doesn’t need to know for his job. I couldn’t tell which twin it was, obviously. Sometimes I think there only is one Oppenheim twin playing both. Fooling us all. Hehe!

***

Speaking of Hehe, most Hehe News of the summer season is keeping me distracted from the fall of our Republic. The most Hehe News of the summer, and maybe the year, involves poop and Gwyneth Paltrow. You see, the most American thing one can do is be gay and make friends with every famous white woman in the country. The other most American thing one can do is be gay and a guest. One does not need another home when one is gay and friends with famous white women. One can simply be a guest, and a gay guest at that. The other, other most American thing one can do aside from being a gay guest of a famous white woman, is to shit all over the guest room of that famous white woman’s home in the Hamptons and then leave without telling her, only for that famous white woman to find out later from her housekeeper, who came upon the ghastly scene, the scene that was left for said housekeeper to clean. It is then also the most American thing to be a famous white woman and have a home in the Hamptons and a guest room in that Hamptons that a gay guest geyser-diarrhea’d all over and then left for the housekeepers to clean. The most American thing is to then repeat this story to every other famous woman you know, and have that story disperse like firecracker embers floating down in the hot night air. It becomes an American fable, repeated in whispers and text threads, until weeks later, on the eve of American Independence, a newspaper owned by a British Viscount breaks the story for all to see. There is nothing more American than that.