Fiction
It was because a town like Catherineville gets very little light. Way up here, near the Arctic, we know the sun exists, as much as we know that heaven is a thing. Or that, somewhere, beyond the soaring hedges of the rich, we know that Jennifer Aniston opens her refrigerator. She must! She has to eat. That’s why people come to Le Beach Tanning Salon, where I work, because light is a need. We need it in a way that is vital, like blood.
It struck Edward in the middle of his follow-up prostate exam—Dr. Beller’s gloved fingers searching his rectum like one might search for the perfect word, certain of its existence—that he hadn’t had sex in nine years. The Parker House. Boston. 2011. A fluke. He marked it like a historic event. A national tragedy. Which, looking back, it basically was.
After a while, I just headed straight for The Bonfire each time I signed online. Every so often, the room would be completely full and I’d have to wait, sometimes for a full hour until someone would leave so I could join. I’d pass the time looking up the week’s weather or playing Minesweeper. I’d end up just clicking all the bombs, purposely, looking to blow myself up, so the game would end quicker.
The morning the new BoomBerry FroYo opened up on Barrington, my mother said, There goes the neighborhood, with true disdain, as though the clientele wouldn’t look exactly like her and her pack of post-menopausal, post-yoga, post-Oprah Super Soul Sunday friends.
Monsieur Kim had a birthmark the shape of the Eiffel Tower in the center of his neck, or at least that’s what he liked to tell us. I always thought it looked more like a regular triangle, or at my most imaginative, the state of New Hampshire. What I liked about him, and what I told the police, is that he created a totally immersive setting for us each day we walked into class.
The ad for The Daddies must have popped up because I searched for terms like gay adoption and gay parents and gay dads and, inevitably, hot gay dads. They met once a week at the Roxbury Gardens Jewish Community Rec Center, and on the third Sunday of each month, there was an informational meeting called Baby Daddies.
I call Château Margaux and warn them Heaven Lee and her mother are planning on stopping by for lunch this afternoon. The young man’s tone shifts—I’m used to this—to that of someone who’s experiencing the swift onset of meningitis.
The exact place Tiff heard J* Starr for the first time was in her bedroom. The exact moment the song came on the radio, she was putting on a pair of hip-hugging boyfriend jeans – loose, charming, essential, “practically a way of life,” the girl at the store had promised.
It totally slipped! And now I’m deadsies, like literally. Ugh! Here’s what happened: It was this past Friday at Chaz P.’s place in WeHo and we were all getting ready for da club (okkkrruuuup!) and Betty Who was bumpin’ and the vodka sodas were flowin’ (low-cal henny!) and we were arguing over Timothée vs Armie.
Mazzy Star is a singer. She is my hero, well at least for now, until I pick some sports player like all the other boys in my class. I cannot tell the other boys Mazzy Star is my hero. They don’t know who she is, but if I told them, I’m sure they would try to steal her from me.
Seek out a friend in a tough situation that calls for immediate attention. Meet this friend at a coffee shop, an around-the-corner kind, modest, nothing baroque or posh, but rather one named after a one-syllable man: Jon's or Ken's.