{"id":13799,"date":"2021-06-11T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2021-06-11T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/everybodys-everybody-by-brady-achterberg\/"},"modified":"2025-11-15T10:38:04","modified_gmt":"2025-11-15T16:38:04","slug":"everybodys-everybody-by-brady-achterberg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2021\/06\/11\/everybodys-everybody-by-brady-achterberg\/","title":{"rendered":"Everybody&#8217;s Everybody by Brady Achterberg"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<ul class=\"wp-block-social-links is-content-justification-right is-layout-flex wp-container-core-social-links-is-layout-765c4724 wp-block-social-links-is-layout-flex\"><li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-facebook  wp-block-social-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/profile.php?id=61556140010887\" class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\"><path d=\"M12 2C6.5 2 2 6.5 2 12c0 5 3.7 9.1 8.4 9.9v-7H7.9V12h2.5V9.8c0-2.5 1.5-3.9 3.8-3.9 1.1 0 2.2.2 2.2.2v2.5h-1.3c-1.2 0-1.6.8-1.6 1.6V12h2.8l-.4 2.9h-2.3v7C18.3 21.1 22 17 22 12c0-5.5-4.5-10-10-10z\"><\/path><\/svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><\/li>\n\n<li class=\"wp-social-link wp-social-link-instagram  wp-block-social-link\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/boudin_mcneese\/\" class=\"wp-block-social-link-anchor\"><svg width=\"24\" height=\"24\" viewBox=\"0 0 24 24\" version=\"1.1\" xmlns=\"http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg\" aria-hidden=\"true\" focusable=\"false\"><path d=\"M12,4.622c2.403,0,2.688,0.009,3.637,0.052c0.877,0.04,1.354,0.187,1.671,0.31c0.42,0.163,0.72,0.358,1.035,0.673 c0.315,0.315,0.51,0.615,0.673,1.035c0.123,0.317,0.27,0.794,0.31,1.671c0.043,0.949,0.052,1.234,0.052,3.637 s-0.009,2.688-0.052,3.637c-0.04,0.877-0.187,1.354-0.31,1.671c-0.163,0.42-0.358,0.72-0.673,1.035 c-0.315,0.315-0.615,0.51-1.035,0.673c-0.317,0.123-0.794,0.27-1.671,0.31c-0.949,0.043-1.233,0.052-3.637,0.052 s-2.688-0.009-3.637-0.052c-0.877-0.04-1.354-0.187-1.671-0.31c-0.42-0.163-0.72-0.358-1.035-0.673 c-0.315-0.315-0.51-0.615-0.673-1.035c-0.123-0.317-0.27-0.794-0.31-1.671C4.631,14.688,4.622,14.403,4.622,12 s0.009-2.688,0.052-3.637c0.04-0.877,0.187-1.354,0.31-1.671c0.163-0.42,0.358-0.72,0.673-1.035 c0.315-0.315,0.615-0.51,1.035-0.673c0.317-0.123,0.794-0.27,1.671-0.31C9.312,4.631,9.597,4.622,12,4.622 M12,3 C9.556,3,9.249,3.01,8.289,3.054C7.331,3.098,6.677,3.25,6.105,3.472C5.513,3.702,5.011,4.01,4.511,4.511 c-0.5,0.5-0.808,1.002-1.038,1.594C3.25,6.677,3.098,7.331,3.054,8.289C3.01,9.249,3,9.556,3,12c0,2.444,0.01,2.751,0.054,3.711 c0.044,0.958,0.196,1.612,0.418,2.185c0.23,0.592,0.538,1.094,1.038,1.594c0.5,0.5,1.002,0.808,1.594,1.038 c0.572,0.222,1.227,0.375,2.185,0.418C9.249,20.99,9.556,21,12,21s2.751-0.01,3.711-0.054c0.958-0.044,1.612-0.196,2.185-0.418 c0.592-0.23,1.094-0.538,1.594-1.038c0.5-0.5,0.808-1.002,1.038-1.594c0.222-0.572,0.375-1.227,0.418-2.185 C20.99,14.751,21,14.444,21,12s-0.01-2.751-0.054-3.711c-0.044-0.958-0.196-1.612-0.418-2.185c-0.23-0.592-0.538-1.094-1.038-1.594 c-0.5-0.5-1.002-0.808-1.594-1.038c-0.572-0.222-1.227-0.375-2.185-0.418C14.751,3.01,14.444,3,12,3L12,3z M12,7.378 c-2.552,0-4.622,2.069-4.622,4.622S9.448,16.622,12,16.622s4.622-2.069,4.622-4.622S14.552,7.378,12,7.378z M12,15 c-1.657,0-3-1.343-3-3s1.343-3,3-3s3,1.343,3,3S13.657,15,12,15z M16.804,6.116c-0.596,0-1.08,0.484-1.08,1.08 s0.484,1.08,1.08,1.08c0.596,0,1.08-0.484,1.08-1.08S17.401,6.116,16.804,6.116z\"><\/path><\/svg><span class=\"wp-block-social-link-label screen-reader-text\">Instagram<\/span><\/a><\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-large-font-size\"><strong>Everybody&#8217;s Everybody<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Brady Achterberg<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">__________<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">My friend Dan died the other day.\u00a0 That\u2019s fine by me apparently.\u00a0 I don\u2019t get sad for shit.\u00a0 I am a dumb animal that only responds to physical pain.\u00a0 I used to think it was because I was young but now I\u2019m 31 and the same way.\u00a0 I\u2019m at the funeral reception at the reception room, a gym-looking place, with the tall rafters and the brown chairs all racked up on rollers in one corner, avoiding his parents, dodging for caprese skewers.\u00a0 I bump by a nest of teenage lanks occupying the cater table and they kind of look at me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cAre you getting fourths?\u201d one asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Stonily I turn my head.&nbsp; These kids don\u2019t deserve my fear.&nbsp; Their suits all have the box creases on them.&nbsp; Like we\u2019re in the shade of an aquarium.&nbsp; Two of them are wearing colored ties.&nbsp; One red and one blue.&nbsp; How did they know Dan?&nbsp; They can\u2019t all be someone\u2019s sons.&nbsp; Dan hung with a lot of young guys at the comic shop doing nerd shit, Dungeons &amp; Dragons and shit.&nbsp; They look the type.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOh, you\u2019re daddy,\u201d says my interlocutor, putting a faggy lilt on the \u201cyou\u2019re\u201d.&nbsp; He\u2019s in the middle, a head shorter than his friends\u2014they spread around him like Wu-Tang wings.&nbsp; My authoritarian glare, which I\u2019ve always fantasized could stall dog attacks, melts, and I look around for church people. &nbsp;The room is loud and everyone is amongst themselves. I get scared.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cLook at him, he doesn\u2019t know what to do with that!\u201d the gay one says.&nbsp; He has our trademark redemption of being better dressed than the others\u2014quiet black suit, tailored, daringly clingy on the legs.&nbsp; I am staring at him inept and thinking yes, he\u2019s a looker, on a pure lizard-brain, aesthetic appreciation level\u2014he flashes a thoughtmelting knavish grin\u2014already a heartbreaker at whatever God-forsaken age he is.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cAnd so how do you know the deceased?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He sobers.&nbsp; \u201cDan.&nbsp; Dan was the best DM I ever had.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHe\u2019s a legend at UCLA Gaming,\u201d another confirms.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou have to be majestic for the campus to call you hot shit eight years later.&nbsp; It\u2019s his players\u2019 players\u2019 players\u2019 who run the games now.\u201d&nbsp; As his voice simmers down for a full sentence it sounds less limp-wrist and more lazy-tomboy.&nbsp; \u201cHow\u2019d you know him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWe were friends.\u201d&nbsp; Something stirs in me as I recalculate.&nbsp; \u201cYou guys freshmen?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cFishies!\u201d&nbsp; He flips the peace sign.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou alum?\u201d asks someone else, tall and acned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYes.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhat year?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cEnglish.&nbsp; Uh, class of 10.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWe\u2019ll leave him with you, he likes to do this.\u201d&nbsp; The someone else grabs the hottie by the arm and sends him towards me.&nbsp; He\u2019s standing in my air.&nbsp; I worry, because I smell of sweat.&nbsp; The gang falls off.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">God he\u2019s a smokeshow.&nbsp; I\u2019m not even that gay, haven\u2019t fucked a dude since college.&nbsp; I don\u2019t really get laid at all, I make good money but money\u2019s not that sexy right now and it can\u2019t change the fact that I\u2019m awkward and weirdly shaped and take on weight every year, I don\u2019t fit into normal suits and I get people stopping me on the street telling me I look like Bashar Assad so it\u2019s bad practice to pretend I have a chance.&nbsp; He punches me on the arm.&nbsp; \u201cYou\u2019re a bastard, Paul.&nbsp; You don\u2019t give a shit about Dan.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWe were friends.&nbsp; I do give a shit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIt\u2019s okay.&nbsp; I don\u2019t care either.\u201d&nbsp; His voice buzzing along like a swamp.&nbsp; \u201cI only met him once.&nbsp; I was an impetuous little shit and he killed me with lightning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOh?\u201d&nbsp; I look around us.&nbsp; People are leaning over me to get snacks.&nbsp; \u201cWanna move over there?\u201d&nbsp; I slope my finger at a line of rolled-up bleachers at the wall.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah,\u201d he says, fondly, as if entertaining me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He walks there first.&nbsp; I follow him from behind.&nbsp; Sinewy gait.&nbsp; Blond bluebell curls knocking on the back of his head.&nbsp; He turns around at the line of bleachers.&nbsp; We are relatively alone here, mourning is sparse.&nbsp; Give me a second to look at your eyes, big buttery maple Snapchat filter eyes, let me look enough and I can map the indoors\u2019 vanilla fluorescents in your eyes.&nbsp; He talks.&nbsp; \u201cYou got something to say to me?\u201d&nbsp; Hands behind his back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah,\u201d I say.&nbsp; \u201cI think you got my name, but I didn\u2019t get yours.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSommer.\u201d&nbsp; He shakes my hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThat\u2019s your real name?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cShort for Somerset.&nbsp; You wanna see my license?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He produces it from his jacket pocket.&nbsp; His photo isn\u2019t the most flattering but captures the eyes at least.&nbsp; \u201cYou were born on 9\/11,\u201d I say dumbly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI love it.&nbsp; Everyone knows where they were on my birthday.&nbsp; Where were you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI was in school,\u201d I said.&nbsp; \u201cThey took me home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cAnything else?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI had a playdate with a friend and they still had the playdate.&nbsp; They wanted it to still be normal.&nbsp; I think his mom was supposed to die in the Towers but she was fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWow!&nbsp; What did you guys do?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI don\u2019t know.&nbsp; It wasn\u2019t very fun.&nbsp; It was stressful.&nbsp; I was 12.&nbsp; I kinda knew what was going on.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHere.\u201d&nbsp; He produces a phone, writes Paul in the new contact field with a red devil emoji and hands it to me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I fill it out, feeling drunk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">On the drive home I\u2019m right away guilty.&nbsp; I\u2019m a 4, he\u2019s a 10 in fresh spring bud.&nbsp; Will I even fuck him right?&nbsp; I never have.&nbsp; What happened to chivalry and solemnity?&nbsp; What happened to marinating on Tinder til I die?&nbsp; He wasn\u2019t into me like that anyway.&nbsp; He was just having fun with an old man.&nbsp; And God bless him, he should be having fun.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cFuck you.&nbsp; I still don\u2019t have a date!\u201d says Sasha, straddling her Coke cup.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOkay, okay,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cTell me all about him,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I do.&nbsp; We\u2019re at a new nominally Korean joint in Pasadena (traditional halfway point for us now), another of those Chipotle slide-your-food enterprises\u2014the food is bad but the prices are surprisingly median.&nbsp; I have a large Fanta in a big paper cup covered in noodle patterns alongside an alien assembly of shrimp and greens in a compostable burrito bowl. &nbsp;Dust of the outer canyons and the December blooms of the chaparral come sweeping in the front door.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sasha was my girl for eight years after high school.&nbsp; Things have only gone uphill ever since I ran over her dog on the stoop of our shared two-bedroom and she broke down crying saying she\u2019d been sleeping with a Salesforce admin she\u2019d met while interning and she hadn\u2019t told me until now because she thought I\u2019d feel bad.&nbsp; What was a painful, protracted, tightly-wound romance is now a chill and positive friendship.&nbsp; Last year for Christmas I got her a regular lamp with a lava lamp body.&nbsp; Sometimes I worry she hasn\u2019t moved on, though.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSo when are you seeing him?\u201d she asks.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cFriday.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhat are y\u2019all doing?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I take my phone out and scroll up.&nbsp; \u201cI asked him if he wanted to hit up bars in the city and he said, uh, \u2018I don\u2019t have any money for bars, why don\u2019t you just come over to my place and we\u2019ll get drunk and play video games?\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She nods, serious suddenly.&nbsp; \u201cIt sounds a little too good to be true.&nbsp; You should worry that he\u2019s only having sex with you to give you AIDS.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI hadn\u2019t thought of that,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sasha swallows a bite and puts out two fingers.&nbsp; \u201cThere\u2019s essentially two gay male subcultures that you have to be aware of.&nbsp; The first group is essentially serial killers.&nbsp; HIV-positive, they use their few remaining years alive to avenge themselves on as many other gay men as possible.&nbsp; Master seducers\u2014you think you\u2019re getting a prime piece of ass when you meet them\u2014but next morning you see a lipstick WELCOME TO AIDS in the mirror and, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI figure these guys, if they\u2019re real, they\u2019re probably chilling out now that it\u2019s treatable,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI was getting to that.&nbsp; There\u2019s a second culture that\u2019s blowing up now that anti-retroviral therapy can so easily prolong life under AIDS.&nbsp; These guys don\u2019t <em>have <\/em>HIV\u2014but they <em>want <\/em>it.&nbsp; Because then they can get it treated and fuck all the HIV-positive guys they want!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThat doesn\u2019t track either,\u201d I say.&nbsp; \u201cIf you really want AIDS just to sleep around, wouldn\u2019t you just sorta be c\u2019est la vie about it?&nbsp; Why would you actively go get it?&nbsp; Once you have AIDS you can\u2019t fuck anyone who\u2019s clean.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou\u2019d think,\u201d she says.&nbsp; \u201cA lot of it is more about the degradation.&nbsp; \u2018Pos me daddy.\u2019&nbsp; They have \u2018posi parties\u2019, where a guy gets tested positive and they celebrate with a big\u2014you know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHuh,\u201d I say.&nbsp; \u201cWell, I don\u2019t have HIV.&nbsp; So he\u2019s probably not the second one.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou say you met him at Dan\u2019s funeral?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHow did he know Dan?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThey were just buds.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI\u2019ve heard shit about funeral crashers.&nbsp; Roll city to city, circling obits, hit twenty funerals a month, fill up on free snacks and at some key point go to the podium and say Yes I know this man, we had a torrid gay love affair behind the scenes, he didn\u2019t want you all to know about me\u2014and by now of course he\u2019s really crying\u2014but I simply had to break out, he says\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer sent me a Snapchat vid of him sitting on a crate playing guitar and I have to turn on sound to see what he\u2019s playing\u2014Creeping Down the Backstairs by the Fratellis, kinda clipped and sloppy but good enough to impress me, his right thigh hefting over the crate is all bare to me, nylon shorts wide as a skirt, looking dusty, undercooked.&nbsp; He bobs and taps his foot.&nbsp; I wonder how many other people are watching.&nbsp; But I\u2019m the only one who loves the Fratellis like I do and I must have told him about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sasha waits looking pouty.&nbsp; \u201cWhat are you watching?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cJust a clip Sommer sent me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cCute cute,\u201d she says.&nbsp; \u201cYou guys are hitting it off anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah,\u201d I say.&nbsp; \u201cIt\u2019s so weird.&nbsp; He\u2019s a stranger, he\u2019s 18, he\u2019s all different from me.&nbsp; And talking to him doesn\u2019t feel like work.&nbsp; It feels effortless.&nbsp; That shit\u2019s so rare.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She nods.&nbsp; \u201cWear protection.&nbsp; I have some friends in the queer underground, I\u2019ll do a bit of snooping for you.&nbsp; One thing I\u2019ve seen with age gaps: the young one\u2019s always a fucking conner.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cRight,\u201d I say.&nbsp; Sasha says a lot of things like this and I believe a lower man than I would reprimand her for it but I find she\u2019s more often right than not.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I show up with rum and mixers.&nbsp; He said not to bring shit but I feel weird standing outside a stranger\u2019s house with nothing.&nbsp; Relic of my days in delivery.&nbsp; Sommer lives in a ground suite in a new development in Westwood, with a rock yard and a big black sliding fence.&nbsp; He answers in an eyelet sash, black stockings and houndstooth check wool paperbag waist shorts bunched in around his thighs like a chef\u2019s hat.&nbsp; The strands of his waist bow reach down lower on his legs than his shorts do.&nbsp; His legs shiny bare.&nbsp; I wonder how much time that takes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou weren\u2019t supposed to bring anything!\u201d he says, guffawing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI had to, I had\u2014\u201d I shake the paper bag of sodas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cCome in!\u201d he says in a rush, grabbing me by the chest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Inside\u2019s a magazine home.&nbsp; Carpets white as floss.&nbsp; Impeccable surfaces.&nbsp; No crumbs no beer coasters.&nbsp; Either he doesn\u2019t live here or someone cleans on Tuesdays.&nbsp; First-floor room split between a kitchen and a lounge, kitchen with the oven on a counter island, lounge with a brown vinyl L-couch and a 72\u201d flatscreen.&nbsp; It has the lived-in-yet-just-pulled-out feel that accompanies the accordioning time of college dorm rooms.&nbsp; Bare walls except for a few Godzilla posters by the stairs.&nbsp; A wide lane of Funko Pops on the black TV stand counter\u2014Groot and shit\u2014Blu Rays and manga on the shelf underneath.&nbsp; On the kitchen side there\u2019s a shallow cupboard with the slated doors folded wide and a thin electric keyboard set up about a foot below some food shelves\u2014industrial-size nutrient supplements, Ramen, sticky soup and bean cans.&nbsp; TV is on playing soccer.&nbsp; Liverpool v. Barcelona.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer slides into the kitchen and catches himself on the island.&nbsp; I follow.&nbsp; On his couch a wiry butch girl with shell-blond hair watches the game and eats carrots out of a soup bowl.&nbsp; I turn and give half a wave but she doesn\u2019t respond.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWho\u2019s she?\u201d I ask Sommer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThey,\u201d he says from behind the island.&nbsp; \u201cI\u2019m sorry.&nbsp; They\u2019re my roommate Jordan.&nbsp; I didn\u2019t introduce you two.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Jordan leans along the sofa to shake my hand.&nbsp; \u201cYeah, Sommer\u2019s stonewalling me cuz he\u2019s a bitter bitch.&nbsp; He\u2019s been trying to get filled for two weeks now.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cJordan, stop!&nbsp; Don\u2019t say \u2018filled\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSommer\u2019s getting FILLED TONIGHT!&nbsp; FILLED WITH SEMEN!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOh my god, stop, you\u2019re scaring him!\u201d says Sommer.&nbsp; \u201cCome here, honey, they\u2019re not like that all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I\u2019ve retreated over to the far side of the island, almost without noticing.&nbsp; I let Sommer drag me back to the TV room and try to rouse myself to the banter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cPaul, Paul, you\u2019re not shy!&nbsp; We\u2019ll break the ice, Paul.&nbsp; Cats or dogs, Paul.&nbsp; Cats or dogs?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cAre those the only options?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cFuck you, Paul!\u201d&nbsp; Sommer starts jumping up and down.&nbsp; \u201cCats and dogs are the only good pets!&nbsp; If you own a fish you might as well own a fucking cactus!&nbsp; If you get a tarantula you\u2019re always gonna worry they\u2019ll get loose!&nbsp; Snakes eat rats and that\u2019s FUCKED!&nbsp; Stop stunting with your man scent, Paul!&nbsp; Cats or dogs?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI had a lizard as a kid,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Jordan called from the living room.&nbsp; \u201cIt probably wasn\u2019t just one lizard.&nbsp; Your parents probably subbed it out when you were at school every time you couldn\u2019t take care of it and it died.&nbsp; You probably had hundreds of lizards.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOh my god, don\u2019t tell him that!\u201d&nbsp; Sommer rushes me back into the kitchen.&nbsp; \u201cI think owning a lizard makes you super fucking hot, Paul.&nbsp; Lots of hot guys don\u2019t have lizards but if a hot guy does have a lizard that kind of completes the circle, you know what I mean?&nbsp; Take something to drink?&nbsp; Don\u2019t listen to them talk for the rest of the night.\u201d&nbsp; He looks back to Jordan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI\u2019ll drink,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhat\u2019d you bring, rum and coke?&nbsp; You want rum and coke?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI\u2019ll drink anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWe have special ciders!\u201d&nbsp; Sommer claps his hands and throws them up, striding to the minifridge.&nbsp; \u201cJordan\u2019s special brew!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou can drink that Paul.&nbsp; You\u2019re allowed to,\u201d says Jordan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOkay.&nbsp; I\u2019m excited,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer pulls a growler of some liquid roughly the color of a period stain out of the fridge and sets it on the counter.&nbsp; He gets a tiny plastic cup from a stack inside a tattered bag and pours me a bit.&nbsp; \u201cTry it first.&nbsp; It\u2019s not for everyone.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I try it.&nbsp; \u201cI like it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOkay,\u201d Sommer says.&nbsp; \u201cJordan, can we bring this upstairs?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou can kill it if you want to.&nbsp; I\u2019m starting an industry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer swings the growler to his hip and padfoots up the stairs.&nbsp; I follow.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cGet some!\u201d says Jordan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer\u2019s room is neat, like he\u2019s living in absentia.&nbsp; He has the bungee dorm chairs, fake-fur stools, black fishnet tapestry stuck with pinned photos spanning one wall.&nbsp; Second tapestry with the moon and stars on the other one.&nbsp; Chest-high bed with like thirty box-packed Tupperware bins beneath it.&nbsp; By its head a rolling shelf of drawers with candles, incense, matte USB table lamps slideshowing from pink to purple.&nbsp; On the other side a dresser and a flatscreen TV, and a suitcase record player on top of a minifridge with a glass door.&nbsp; Cacti and more Funko pops on the windowsill.&nbsp; White Christmas lights on the ceiling.&nbsp; We walk in and Sommer doesn\u2019t turn on the light, just lets his lamps do the work.&nbsp; It\u2019s dim.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer hands me the cider.&nbsp; \u201cYou can drink out of it.&nbsp; I\u2019ll wash it later.\u201d&nbsp; He hops up hip-first and worms to the back of the bed, finds a remote and flicks it on.&nbsp; Dull sapphire of the Xbox Home Media screen paints the room from the bedside corner.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI hope I\u2019m not the only one drinking,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer shakes his head and pulls mango pineapple Svedka from the fridge.&nbsp; \u201cI just only drink mixers.&nbsp; Bring that Coke up.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I heave myself over the bed, conscious of my flab as my shirt rides up and it pools muffinlike over the mattress.&nbsp; Sommer pours the Coke and vodka into a MALE TEARS mug then hands me the bottles to sit on the bedside shelf.&nbsp; He stretches to the foot of the bed for a charging Switch controller.&nbsp; \u201cWhaddya wanna play?\u201d he asks, worming around into me as he gets comfy. &nbsp;\u201cI don\u2019t have anything crazy.&nbsp; Skyrim, Minecraft, you know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSkyrim\u2019s single player,\u201d I said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cTwo-player\u2019s easy.\u201d&nbsp; Sommer snaps the two ends off the Switch and hands me one.&nbsp; \u201cYou got the left controller, I got the right, and we control two halves of the same person.&nbsp; So I get the right attack and you get the left one, I move and you orient, it\u2019s tough but it\u2019s real fun.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSounds popular,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He shrugs.&nbsp; We get into it.&nbsp; Bickering over our guy\u2019s looks takes like half an hour\u2014he wants to be one of those cat things which I acquiesce to but then I try to fuck with him for the rest of it\u2014and he refills his mixer a couple times and I off a third of the growler.&nbsp; I\u2019m stewing in libido, at one point while we\u2019re running around dying to the intro dragon because we can\u2019t get our jumps to work right I shift up on him to get my junk more in line with his ass and he kinda twists his head back and puts a hand round my head and we start making out, him twisting and collapsing and reasserting onto me.&nbsp; I roll my hands up his back and grasp his hot shoulderblades, push him up and down along my body.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou kiss with your eyes open,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSo do you or you wouldn\u2019t know.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI cheat,\u201d he says.&nbsp; \u201cI peek them a little cuz I like to see the man I\u2019m kissing but I don\u2019t bug em wide out, that\u2019s weird.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cShould I stop?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI don\u2019t mind.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">We strip down to our underwear over time.&nbsp; I get on top frotting him, ramming him like I\u2019m carving him out of soap, cock out through the slit in my boxers, his coiled around in his briefs.&nbsp; When he\u2019s wearing clothes he looks so soft but really he\u2019s so spare and almond-hard all skin and muscle.&nbsp; It\u2019s like fucking a football.&nbsp; He keeps making these wispy moaning sounds like a girl.&nbsp; It gets right to me and I finish early without thinking about it, jizzing all over his abs.&nbsp; I feel like a tool naked as I am.&nbsp; Sommer pulls me in and tries to kiss me but can\u2019t stop giggling.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cShit, I\u2019m sorry,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou\u2019re funny,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I come down at 6 in the morning and Jordan\u2019s up boiling something on the stove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhat\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSnake Juice,\u201d they say, passing through it with a soup spoon.&nbsp; \u201cTry it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I look over the pot.&nbsp; It\u2019s cloudy water, a little pinkish, swirling with foam and weird white particles.&nbsp;&nbsp; I take a spoonful, blow on it and drink.&nbsp; It tastes like Adderall seawater\u2014I hold it in my mouth for a moment, then turn and spit in the sink.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo?\u201d says Jordan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cFuck what\u2019s in that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIt\u2019s Snake Juice.&nbsp; So originally it was just water, potassium chloride and three different kinds of salt\u2014I\u2019m on the Snake Diet, basically, snakes eat only two hours a day, I eat only two hours a day, and the rest of the time I have Snake Juice\u2014but the fact is that you can\u2019t get all your daily nutrients in such a short window, so I\u2019ve been exploring different vitamins and supplements to chop up and mix in with it, so if you\u2019re getting a tangy taste it\u2019s that\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhy don\u2019t you just eat the vitamins on the side and drink the snake juice on its own?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI\u2019ve tried other ways.&nbsp; This is better.\u201d&nbsp; They turn off the burner.&nbsp; \u201cI\u2019m famous for my little innovations.&nbsp; Like I have a plan for once the brewery takes off, we\u2019ll be blowing our own glass bottles right?&nbsp; And we\u2019ll brew the beer at the same time, and when the bottles are still cooling down\u2014then we put the beer in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cDoes that work?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIt ought to.\u201d&nbsp; Jordan pours the snake juice into a smoothie cup and drinks.&nbsp; I keep watch for a flash of repulsion or something but there\u2019s none, they drink it smooth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">We go at it for a few weeks.&nbsp; I fall in line with the banter in Sommer\u2019s house\u2014Jordan doesn\u2019t seem to trust me but they\u2019re willing to make a joke of it which is kind.&nbsp; Feels great to fret about this shit, like oh do his friends hate me or are they just playing, like I\u2019m back in undergrad.&nbsp; I pick up little things about them.&nbsp; I become familiar.&nbsp; I pick up on wardrobe cues\u2014when he comes to the door in sweats and a tee it means he\u2019s tired, wants to smoke a hit and head to bed\u2014when he has those wow-factor outfits on he\u2019s horny, but horny for himself, he wants me to feel him up but never shuck and fuck, I\u2019ll take him upstairs and he\u2019ll take everything off himself swift and brusque like a husband.&nbsp; We walk around his neighborhood and he picks out the neighbor\u2019d dogs.&nbsp; We pick cute spots to meet.&nbsp; The park at dusk and we lay out the quilt.&nbsp; Little Japan and we spelunk the closed tunnels and crash Anime Jungle hashed out of our minds and he shoplifts some blue plushies and jams them in my backpack to find later.&nbsp; The ice rink and he kicks up like stirrups, doing graceful, and I watch holding the rail, get frosting on my puffy coat.&nbsp; He pries me off to the arena and laughs at me shuddering on sawhorse legs, takes my hand and pulls me round, falls when I do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou okay?\u201d I ask, hobbling up.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He laughs.&nbsp; \u201cI\u2019m made of rubber.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">We road trip to Joshua Tree, we pass the time with road head, I cum in him and hear him gag bubbles and I zone out trying to carry the soundbyte into the future.&nbsp; I don\u2019t bring him round to my place.&nbsp; It feels off.&nbsp; For his part he never talks about himself no matter what I try to ask him.&nbsp; He just wants to hear about my life.&nbsp; It gets exhausting.&nbsp; It gets me greedy lazing about with him all the time talking about me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I don\u2019t see Sasha so much anymore.&nbsp; I think she\u2019s in a flare of jealousy, the first big one since our separation.&nbsp; She goes on a Tinder date with an ex con and it blows up in her face, he\u2019s trying to get her to give him money all this stuff, sucks cuz I was rooting for him and her.&nbsp; She calls in tears and asks can she crash at my place, I don\u2019t even get a say, I start mixing drinks.&nbsp; Rum and coke like she likes them.&nbsp; She drops a mustard jacket on my computer chair and gets to venting.&nbsp; I think I know what\u2019s going on here but I feel safe that it\u2019ll be the last time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou just gotta know how to stay safe, do whatever makes you happy, remember it\u2019s not a rush,\u201d I tell her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She wipes away snot, sobering.&nbsp; \u201cI talked to my sources.&nbsp; They can\u2019t speak to your boy specifically, but they have a word for what\u2019s happening.&nbsp; It\u2019s called kiddie fishing.&nbsp; You aware of it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cAll right well, your guy, he\u2019s, what, 19 he says?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah.&nbsp; 18.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThis is how they get the big elites.&nbsp; This like, I\u2019m sure you\u2019ve heard of the Epstein situation, he was famous for pulling this.&nbsp; They get themselves a teenybopper, like a fuckin hard 10, like kids aren\u2019t attractive at all of course but in this world, with these sickos\u2026.\u201d&nbsp; She waves her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOkay,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThey set him up with a fake ID and a home full of cameras, send him to you to hit it off and, you know, do your business, they come to you a week later and say you know that twink you bagged, turns out he was only 14, what an understandable mistake we aren\u2019t here to judge we just want you to follow these steps if you don\u2019t want the footage delivered to the proper authorities\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI\u2019m not a big politician or Hollywood guy though,\u201d I say.&nbsp; \u201cI\u2019m just a staffing consultant.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cDidn\u2019t you guys just take a big contract with the DOD?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI guess.\u201d&nbsp; I mix another shot and bring it back to the stool on her side of the counter.&nbsp; \u201cI really don\u2019t think he\u2019s anything but what he says he is.&nbsp; Really!&nbsp; He\u2019s worldly.&nbsp; He feels more 22 than 25, open minded and fresh and cheery but with a good head on his shoulders, you know?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cListen to yourself.\u201d&nbsp; Sasha runs her hand along my sweatered arm.&nbsp; I push her off and she scrambles back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo really!\u201d I say.&nbsp; She\u2019s laughing and I\u2019m laughing.&nbsp; \u201cHe\u2019s really sharp.&nbsp; I feel like I\u2019m talking to someone older than me\u2014I feel like I\u2019m talking to my dad!\u201d&nbsp; She tickles at my knees and I grab her wrists.&nbsp; \u201cIt\u2019s not funny!&nbsp; It\u2019s not funny!&nbsp; It\u2019s not that funny!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cShut up!\u201d&nbsp; She pretends to slap me, cups my cheek instead.&nbsp; \u201cLook at yourself.\u201d&nbsp; She starts to brush by my neck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI know,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I wake up spooning her while she goes through my texts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo, uh, can I have that?\u201d I say, feeling around for my arm.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She recoils with it.&nbsp; \u201cPaul I just wanna ask you practical questions.\u201d&nbsp; She slides off the bed and stands facing away from me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo!&nbsp; I don\u2019t think that\u2019s very appropriate.\u201d&nbsp; I rub my eyes.&nbsp; \u201cWhy don\u2019t I just hit it one more time and send you off?&nbsp; We could have a nice morning.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cEww!&nbsp; You\u2019re so forward now.&nbsp; Just like last night.&nbsp; It\u2019s a pattern.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo, I just think this might be the last time ever.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou can think what you want.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I get up off the bed and start chasing her around the room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She sprites ahead of me.&nbsp; \u201cPaul!&nbsp; Paul.&nbsp; I need you to think rational, I need you to introduce some rationality.&nbsp; Can you do that for me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I don\u2019t respond, lumbering, stiff from sleeping.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhat does Sommer do for a living?&nbsp; Where is he from?&nbsp; Who are his parents?&nbsp; Does he go to school?&nbsp; How can he afford his place?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHe goes to UCLA.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhat\u2019s he study?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHe\u2019s undeclared.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cAnd are you going to call the school and ask if he\u2019s on the roster?&nbsp; Has he ever mentioned a professor he hates, a class he likes?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">My phone rings.&nbsp; Sasha hands it over to me, stern.&nbsp; \u201cHe\u2019s called you four times already.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">It\u2019s Sommer.&nbsp; I answer it and stumble into the bathroom.&nbsp; \u201cHey!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHow\u2019s Sasha?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I sit on the toilet.&nbsp; \u201cShe\u2019s fine, what?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIt\u2019s okay, buddy.&nbsp; I know.&nbsp; I\u2019m not mad or anything.&nbsp; I just know.&nbsp; And I just want you to know that I always know, I\u2019ll always know.&nbsp; But I\u2019m not mad!&nbsp; I\u2019m never mad.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOkay,\u201d I say.&nbsp; \u201cShould you be mad?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo!&nbsp; I mean what, we bang for a few weeks and now you\u2019re my property?&nbsp; No!&nbsp; We can be modern about this.&nbsp; If we want to start dating, we can talk about all this, until then, of course, we can see whoever we want.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWait, are you seeing anyone else?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo, Paul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo.&nbsp; Okay.&nbsp; Obviously, there\u2019s nothing wrong with that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cTalk to you later, Paul.&nbsp; You got things to get to!\u201d&nbsp; He makes kissy noises.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I make some back.&nbsp; I hang up.&nbsp; I open the bathroom door and accidentally knock Sasha back on her ass.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She rights herself and brushes back her hair.&nbsp; \u201cSo he has it bugged.&nbsp; No big deal.&nbsp; Normal people do that.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSasha, he\u2019s never even been to my house.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOh, good!&nbsp; Good!&nbsp; And I was so worried!&nbsp; And what\u2019s this, I bet you\u2019ve never told him your address?&nbsp; How would he get a hold of that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHe\u2019s not mad or anything.&nbsp; Really it\u2019s okay.&nbsp; I would have told him anyway.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cPaul!&nbsp; Paul, I understand what you\u2019re doing.&nbsp; You\u2019re acting cool because you know he\u2019s listening right now as we speak.&nbsp; It\u2019s supremely likely that you knew he was listening all last night too and had to keep quiet under dire threat.&nbsp; Well here\u2019s my question to you, Paul.&nbsp; What do you get by playing his game?&nbsp; I mean, if he\u2019s listening he\u2019s surely listening to me saying this right now and he understands the level of play here\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI don\u2019t think he understands the level of play here,\u201d I say, walking out to the kitchen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cPaul, give me some time to process the elements and formulate some kind of plan of attack.&nbsp; You are <em>not <\/em>beyond saving.&nbsp; You are not a hostage here, whatever you may think.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I sit down.&nbsp; \u201cI think I\u2019m gonna go talk to Sommer.&nbsp; I just don\u2019t want this to be a little hanging bubble.&nbsp; I want things to work out.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cTake me with you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Gravely, \u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She follows me in her car.&nbsp; I don\u2019t try to shake her.&nbsp; With 7:40 traffic it\u2019s hard to keep track of her long enough to avoid her.&nbsp; I arrive in just under an hour.&nbsp; It\u2019s crisp, a Sunday in November, peaceful.&nbsp; I park half a block up from Sommer\u2019s house and get out waiting for Sasha.&nbsp; She creeps up, wary, but steady, and parks behind me.&nbsp; I walk around to her.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou proud of yourself?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She rolls down the window and peeks at the house next to us.&nbsp; \u201cWell, what do you want to do, do you just want to wait?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo.\u201d&nbsp; I open her door.&nbsp; \u201cLet\u2019s go in.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">We walk up.&nbsp; Jordan meets us.&nbsp; \u201cHe\u2019s not home.&nbsp; Who\u2019s she?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I introduce them.&nbsp; Sasha gives a firm handshake, fazed but alert.&nbsp; Jordan walks us both into the living room.&nbsp; The TV is playing <em>Pirates of the Caribbean.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhere is he?\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Jordan handwaves me and flops on the couch.&nbsp; \u201cHe does something on Sundays.&nbsp; How about you, girl?&nbsp; What you got on your plate?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhat?&nbsp; I\u2019m not doing anything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou remind me of this question I was having.&nbsp; How do you like Kiera Knightly\u2019s tits?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sasha looks at me and looks back.&nbsp; \u201cI was reading this awful thing on Reddit the other day, where one guy was saying like they keep putting her in these movies where she\u2019s like, she was Anna Karenina, she was Colette, she was Freud\u2019s GF, like what\u2019s going on?&nbsp; And then a guy was like it\u2019s cuz she has tiny tits\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cShe DOES have tiny tits!&nbsp; Oh my god!&nbsp; It\u2019s so terrible!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s that big a deal,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah, well, you\u2019re a fag so shut up.&nbsp; There\u2019s room on the couch, Sasha!&nbsp; Are you scared?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Jordan coils up to one side of the couch so they\u2019re kind of in a half-squat.&nbsp; Sasha sits where there\u2019s room.&nbsp; I don\u2019t really know how to arrange myself so I stand near the TV.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSommer says you code?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah,\u201d says Sasha, \u201cI\u2019m between gigs at the moment.&nbsp; Kinda squirreling away for the big come-up, et cetera.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah, you got bands?\u201d&nbsp; Jordan flashes devil signs.&nbsp; \u201cI saw you guys took two different cars.&nbsp; I thought that was cute.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWe weren\u2019t really\u2026.\u201d&nbsp; Sasha fumbles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWe\u2019re not conjoined at the hip,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI like to hear it!&nbsp; Sasha, can I pick your brain?&nbsp; I had this idea for an app, or like I\u2019m working on it, I already have it working in Android Studio and everything.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI listen to politics.&nbsp; What do kids in my generation care about?&nbsp; Tuition.&nbsp; Student loans.&nbsp; You can\u2019t get away from hearing about it.&nbsp; I can\u2019t.&nbsp; So I figured, Why not start a new private school lender with a forgiveness program built in?&nbsp; If you keep your GPA above a threshold, you never have to pay back a dime.&nbsp; That way we\u2019re really selecting for talent, not rich parents.&nbsp; Help move towards something, you know?&nbsp; Kind of a nonprofit, I mean we\u2019d make money, but a mix of a loan and a scholarship\u2014I have stuff I\u2019ve written on it I could send you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sasha listens, compact on the couch, hunting for hidden meanings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI feel like most student lenders are big banks, Wells Fargo and stuff like that,\u201d I say.&nbsp;&nbsp; \u201cYou can\u2019t really start from zero.&nbsp; It\u2019s a whole process.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Jordan turns to me.&nbsp; \u201cYeah you\u2019re really cool Paul!&nbsp; Capitalism is a scam!&nbsp; You\u2019re right!&nbsp; It\u2019s all about making you say, Oh if I work hard enough I\u2019ll get rich, but if you\u2019re turning time into money you\u2019re already losing!&nbsp; That\u2019s why we\u2019re out here making money into money! &nbsp;That\u2019s what this is about!&nbsp; It\u2019s the money to money mindset, something you apparently can only think of as some hermeneutical giant worship fully out of your reach!&nbsp; We\u2019re getting some heavy bruising in our rapport here, Paul, obviously this is a staticky friendship, I think you get it, but I want to check in are you doing okay?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I pause.&nbsp; \u201cI guess I feel like you don\u2019t like men.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOf course I like men!&nbsp; I mean, Sommer\u2019s a man, and he\u2019s my best friend.&nbsp; How about you, Sasha, are you doing okay?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI\u2019m doing fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou wanna see my room?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIf you want me to see your room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cCome.\u201d&nbsp; Jordan takes Sasha by the hand.&nbsp; I consider giving them privacy, then follow up the stairs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Jordan\u2019s room is a blast of light\u2014window frames pried off the drywall and stacked in the corner, and if the sun wasn\u2019t enough there\u2019s an 8-foot photoshoot lamp with a cage around its head like a Gotham villain in the near corner blasting 600 watts. &nbsp;Blackout curtains thick as X-Ray bibs sit rolled up on hooks.&nbsp; Their bed is in the middle of the room, mattress bulky like it\u2019s been stuffed with melons.&nbsp; To the right is a heavy plywood desk stuffed with papers, rulers, jacketless reference books, and weird bits of plastic and scrap metal.&nbsp; Diagrams tacked to the walls, showing domes, combustion engines and huge maze-submarine type things.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Jordan pulls off a big one, six feet in their hands, showing half a dozen concentric circles run through with tunnels and mechanical joints labeled with neat, industrious marginal scrawl.&nbsp; They hand it to Sasha, who seems elated.&nbsp; \u201cThis is sorta the type of thing I\u2019m working on,\u201d they say.&nbsp; \u201cI\u2019d need to pick up a ton of money, of course\u2026.&nbsp; A self-contained, self-combusting ecosystem, deep under the Pacific Ocean.&nbsp; The layers are hydroelectric models, gardens for oxygen, et cetera.&nbsp; A full retreat from the world economy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWow.&nbsp; That\u2019s wild,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Shit calms down again for about two months.&nbsp; Sasha and Jordan start fucking which is fine but also kinda weird and hurtful\u2014I know it sounds shitty but I miss having a girl at wits\u2019 end for me, not that I\u2019m for sure certain that Sasha was at wits\u2019 end for me.&nbsp; And I can\u2019t complain.&nbsp; Sommer and I are falling in love.&nbsp; I feel so cozy inside him now.&nbsp; He\u2019s my enclosure.&nbsp; He dyes his hair hot orange.&nbsp; We never fight.&nbsp; He always knows how to play me out when I start getting arbitrary.&nbsp; At some point I ask if he wants to make it official and he says yes.&nbsp; A week later he wants to put a selfie on Instagram.&nbsp; I get cowardly for that, I say I don\u2019t know if I want this to be about everybody.&nbsp; Don\u2019t worry about everybody he says everybody\u2019s everybody.&nbsp; He tells me a little about his mom.&nbsp; She has dementia in a care home in South Bay.&nbsp; He wants us to visit her.&nbsp; I ask him how old she is and he gives me a look like I can\u2019t ask that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">We drive down a weekend.&nbsp; When we get there we buy pina coladas from Whole Foods and drop them in a cooler and visit the beach a while.&nbsp; I chill in a rented chair and Sommer\u2019s on all fours making stuff in the sand.&nbsp; He builds two castles that turn into tits and a wiggling wall that turns into a snake.&nbsp; After 3 it starts getting cold so he knocks it town and we head to his mom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">The old folks\u2019 home is all white and toffee orange on the outside, tinted windows chloriney, familiar architecture, one story, surrounded by neat hedges. &nbsp;We park diagonally across the street by an abandoned tire store and walk up, then in, down a rock garden path walled by giant concrete vases of big ferns and flowers.&nbsp; The front desk is all brown mosaic with more plants\u2014hanging pots with vines growing up their chains.&nbsp; Pop hits from 2014 play damply above us.&nbsp; Sommer signs us in then leads me down hallways to his mom\u2019s room.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cDo you hear birds?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThey all get birds to give them something to do, it\u2019s supposed to be good if they have little projects.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer knocks on the door.&nbsp; A dark-haired attendant in hex glasses answers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cMaxine\u2019s son and this is my boyfriend, Paul.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Her eyes light up.&nbsp; \u201cCome in!&nbsp; Yes, you were expected!&nbsp; Can I get you a drink?&nbsp; She\u2019s in her room?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She steps us into a kitchen-lounge suite whose green soft-industrial furnishings clash with a teak dining table with umbrella feet that\u2019s clearly better off outdoors.&nbsp; China plates hang on wire wall hangers showing scenes from Tom Sawyer.&nbsp; Shelves around the room have cookbooks, Bibles, Lives of the Presidents type stuff.&nbsp; A flatscreen TV plays some old Dumb &amp; Dumber type show about soldiers.&nbsp; By the far wall there\u2019s a square standing cage holding plastic toys and a parrot.&nbsp; The parrot is pantsuit gray with a yellow front.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWe have all kinds of liquor in the freezer,\u201d the attendant says.&nbsp; \u201cMy name\u2019s Gretchen, by the way.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou look great today, Gretchen.\u201d&nbsp; Sommer shakes her hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I meander to the back hall.&nbsp; Right door\u2019s a tile bathroom with one of those big in-ground tubs with the jets.&nbsp; Left door\u2019s closed and I assume it\u2019s the bedroom.&nbsp; Window looks out on a bush, the road, a village of tin-roof storage sheds across the road and then, the ocean.&nbsp; Sun puts a hot rhombus on the floor.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cShe\u2019s sleeping, you probably don\u2019t want her to go in there,\u201d Gretchen says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOkay.\u201d&nbsp; I turn back.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Gretchen grabs a handle of Stolichnaya like an iron and sets it on the counter.&nbsp; A line of freezer fuzz stuck to the label starts melting.&nbsp; \u201cWhat do you like?&nbsp; I just do vodka coke.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou left the freezer door open.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOh.&nbsp; Thanks.\u201d&nbsp; She closes it, then opens the fridge.&nbsp; \u201cWe can do shots.&nbsp; Don\u2019t wanna spread anything around.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHaha!&nbsp; Sure,\u201d says Sommer.&nbsp; \u201cAre you new?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah.&nbsp; Why?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer shakes his head.&nbsp; \u201cNo reason, you like it here?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOh, it\u2019s wild.&nbsp; Such an energy.&nbsp; It\u2019s fun all day.&nbsp; It\u2019s the fun that wears you down.\u201d&nbsp; Gretchen pours three heavy shots.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNone for me, thanks,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer takes his.&nbsp; \u201cYou seem to be getting right at home.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah\u2026.&nbsp; I put music on, too, if you want I can put on some music for us.\u201d&nbsp; She sounds as if nothing would cause her more pain.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou take care of the birds?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cIf the resident can\u2019t, I do,\u201d she says.&nbsp; \u201cBut a lot of our residents take care of them on their own.&nbsp; They love the birds.&nbsp; Birds are very popular.&nbsp; Others like your mom, I do gotta check up on em, but they do fine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cDid you ever have a bird?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI did!&nbsp; That\u2019s funny.&nbsp; A little budgie called Blood\u2014I was very young, I don\u2019t know where I got that name.\u201d&nbsp; She fake-laughs.&nbsp; \u201cI couldn\u2019t get him to talk, so I\u2019d put my computer by his cage at night playing the same thing on loop, like \u2018Good Birdy\u2019 or \u2018Hi Gretchie.\u2019&nbsp; Then he learned.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah?&nbsp; I bet,\u201d he says.&nbsp; \u201cDo you know if Mom will\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHow long have you been dating?\u201d she asks.&nbsp; \u201cOh, sorry.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cA few weeks,\u201d says Sommer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhere y\u2019all from?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cGlendale, me,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThat\u2019s a ways, isn\u2019t it?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou take the 5 and merge onto the 105 basically and there\u2019s always a couple slowdowns but I think we made good time, don\u2019t you think we made good time, Sommer?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer hits the table.&nbsp; \u201cI tap out.&nbsp; I\u2019m seeing my mom.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Gretchen utters a thin, wordless plea.&nbsp; \u201cYou\u2019re gonna wake her up.&nbsp; She sleeps all afternoon!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer strides into the bedroom and I follow.&nbsp; His mom\u2019s sitting up on the bed looking lost\u2014a taut, enameled woman, with toned arms and sharp elbows, and sticky blonde hair just a shade lighter than her skin.&nbsp; She looks like a swim coach I had once.&nbsp; 50 at the oldest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHey,\u201d she says, quiet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Gretchen butts past us.&nbsp; \u201cHow are you doing?&nbsp; Don\u2019t you want to sleep?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI had the strangest dream,\u201d she says.&nbsp; \u201cI was sitting at a fire with my friends, we were all going around trying to\u2026 oh, it\u2019s not important what we were trying to do, but everyone else was better at doing it.&nbsp; And we were slowly coming around to me and I was going to do my thing, I already had it pictured, and I so, so didn\u2019t want to do it, but I couldn\u2019t change my mind, it was that sort of dream sickness\u2026.\u201d&nbsp; She pauses, like holding on a call, then looks at us.&nbsp; \u201cWho are you?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI\u2019m Paul,\u201d I say.&nbsp; \u201cI\u2019m\u2014your son\u2019s\u2014\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cOh and who is this beautiful little gentleman?\u201d she croons to Sommer.&nbsp; He looks down.&nbsp; \u201cOh you\u2019re such a little charmer!&nbsp; What a smart boy.&nbsp; Is he yours?\u201d she asks me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cUh, no,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cLittle boy, I\u2019m giving you some extra cash and you don\u2019t have to tell anyone.\u201d&nbsp; She unzips a teal plastic crocskin wallet and goes roving for bills.&nbsp; Sommer sits down by her on the bed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHi, Mom,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">She pulls out a 10 and puts it in his hand.&nbsp; \u201cThis\u2019ll be our little secret.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Seems like a lot of personal shit going on so I duck out.&nbsp; Off in the suite I start talking to the parrot.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSchultz you idiot!\u201d it says, shrill, questing, each syllable louder.&nbsp; \u201cHey Schultz.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSchultz?&nbsp; Who\u2019s that?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cFor the Reich.&nbsp; For the Reich.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThe fuck?&nbsp; Nazi bird?\u201d&nbsp; It\u2019s big.&nbsp; Its wicked curved beak looks unhealthy, like a hangnail.&nbsp; I poke my finger through the bars.&nbsp; It tries to nab me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI see nuffink!\u201d it says, in a weird mocking tone.&nbsp; \u201cI hear nuffink, I see nuffink!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah, don\u2019t like that, do you?\u201d I say.&nbsp; \u201cNice birdie.&nbsp; They should take you out more.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSchultz.&nbsp; Help us escape, help us escape.\u201d&nbsp; Its voice shifts to a bassy mutter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSure thing little bird.&nbsp; Don\u2019t see why not.\u201d&nbsp; I fumble with the cage door.&nbsp; Do you have a name?&nbsp; Is it Schultz?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cSee nuffink!\u201d it responds.&nbsp; I open the door and it flutters onto my hand, weighty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou\u2019re good!&nbsp; Are you a boy birdie or a girl birdie?\u201d I ask.&nbsp; \u201cWhat do they do to you here?&nbsp; Why do you say this stuff?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhen we escape.&nbsp; Escape.&nbsp; Escape.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I take Schultz to the window, unclasp it, push it open, toss him out.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cPromise me, promise me,\u201d he says, madly flapping, then skittering like Roadrunner across the lot, only stopping to peck at a white Toyota.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer and I stop at a seafood shack along the wharf for some overpriced cod on his bill.&nbsp; When we walk back to the car it\u2019s nearly golden hour.&nbsp; Sun\u2019s on the water and the cement blocks are tinted postcard peach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYour mom seemed like she was doing well,\u201d I say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">Sommer slows and looks out by me at the water.&nbsp; His pixie eyes seem opaque for the first time to me, licorice on this dim, like they\u2019ve been made to put on a fancy suit and go to work\u2014hotter than he\u2019s ever been.&nbsp; \u201cShe\u2019ll die soon.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cCancer in her left lung, undetected until it\u2019s too late.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhen did you hear this?&nbsp; What the fuck?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI didn\u2019t hear it yet.&nbsp; It\u2019s undetected.&nbsp; Like I said.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cAll right so, she\u2019s not?&nbsp; What are you on?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">He shrugs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou\u2019re fucked up man.&nbsp; You\u2019re a fuckin sociopath.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI\u2019m living the same 19 years over and over again,\u201d he says.&nbsp; \u201cI\u2019ll fall asleep on my 19<sup>th<\/sup> birthday and wake up being born.&nbsp; I won\u2019t remember everything from this life\u2014it\u2019ll come back with all the other ones, in glossy layers, so I can sit around all afternoon daydreaming it.&nbsp; Every time my mother dies\u2014I\u2019ve come to expect it\u2014be bored with it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cLike Groundhog Day?\u201d I ask.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah.&nbsp; Like Groundhog Day.\u201d&nbsp; He stops.&nbsp; I drop his hand and stop with him.&nbsp; \u201cYou guys always the same shit.&nbsp; It\u2019s like a wave collapsing.&nbsp; I get shivers.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou say this shit to a lot of people?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cA hundred thousand and some.&nbsp; And I\u2019ve told you nine times Paul.&nbsp; You always get like this.&nbsp; I\u2019ve dated the whole eligible population of LA.&nbsp; There\u2019s maybe some stragglers.&nbsp; Maybe in another thousand lives I\u2019ll go to another city.&nbsp; But I like repeating the favorites.&nbsp; I like coming back to you.&nbsp; You\u2019re easy.&nbsp; You just take.\u201d&nbsp; He\u2019s crying a bit.&nbsp; I\u2019ve never seen him do that.&nbsp; \u201cAnd when Mom dies I feel all these me\u2019s crying folded over in my head but I feel all these other me\u2019s not giving a shit.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYeah, that\u2019s trippy, dude,\u201d I say.&nbsp; \u201cDamn.&nbsp; I don\u2019t know what to make of that.&nbsp; That\u2019s unfortunate.&nbsp; I feel for you.&nbsp; I really do.\u201d&nbsp; What had Sasha been talking about then?&nbsp; \u201cHave you been, like, keeping track of me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cWhat?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cStalking me?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo, Paul.&nbsp; I already knew you.&nbsp; I just explained.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNo, not that bullshit.&nbsp; Like actually.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">~<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I go back to Sommer\u2019s house and simply drop him off.&nbsp; I get home at 11 and see texts from Sasha asking to stop by.&nbsp; I tell her sure and ask her how\u2019s Jordan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThey ghosted me,\u201d she says, not till she\u2019s in my house.&nbsp; \u201cI think.&nbsp; But I\u2019m not sure.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cNice.&nbsp; I think Sommer\u2019s gonna do the same.&nbsp; I think seeing his mom not know him really shook him.&nbsp; I can\u2019t get a handle on him, I know he gets affected by stuff and I don\u2019t know how.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cDid you break up with him?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">I pull rum out the freezer and gripe with the cork.&nbsp; \u201cI don\u2019t know if I did.&nbsp; Like I said I think he\u2019ll ghost me.&nbsp; He seems the type.&nbsp; Otherwise I can tell him I\u2019m sleeping with you.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou\u2019re not though.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cA little lie.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cYou\u2019re really strange,\u201d she says as I nab tumblers with two fingers from the upper cabinet.&nbsp; \u201cSomething\u2019s gotten into you.&nbsp; Sommer made you into something.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cHe made me in love!&nbsp; I\u2019m in love now.&nbsp; Every day I get up and go on another date with myself because I am just joyously, mindlessly in love.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThat\u2019s nice.&nbsp; No ice in mine.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI know.\u201d&nbsp; I finish a near-gone bottle of Coke into our glasses, more in hers than mine, because she likes it that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI\u2019m not going to sleep with you,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cJordan turned you out, huh?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cI would never use you, Paul.&nbsp; I never have.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">\u201cThat\u2019s all right.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>Brady Achterberg<\/strong> grew up on a chicken farm in southern Pennsylvania and studied writing and computer science at Susquehanna University, graduating in 2019. Previous published works can be found at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rivercraftmagazine.com\/fiction\"><em>Rivercraft<\/em><\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/plainchina.org\/2020\/02\/02\/old-dog-can-almost-hear-the-worms-sigh\/\"><em>Plain China<\/em><\/a>, and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spilledmilkmagazine.com\/issue-04n\"><em>Spilled Milk<\/em><\/a>. Since graduating, Brady has found work as a programmer, but continues to write and read.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\"><strong>________<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-full\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"438\" height=\"211\" src=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-15484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1.jpg 438w, https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/37\/2024\/01\/boudin-logo-1-300x145.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 438px) 100vw, 438px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center has-large-font-size\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/2022\/06\/29\/coronalife-by-terena-elizabeth-bell\/\">Next<\/a> &gt;&gt;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-medium-font-size\">To learn more about submitting your work to <em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/boudin-submissions\/\">Boudin<\/a><\/em> or applying to McNeese State University&#8217;s Creative Writing <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/mfa-application-submissions\/\">MFA program<\/a>, please visit Submissions for details.<\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Everybody&#8217;s Everybody Brady Achterberg __________ My friend Dan died the other day.\u00a0 That\u2019s fine by me apparently.\u00a0 I don\u2019t get sad for shit.\u00a0 I am a dumb animal that only responds to physical pain.\u00a0 I used to think it was because I was young but now I\u2019m 31 and the same way.\u00a0 I\u2019m at the&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[243,25],"tags":[75,121,26],"class_list":["post-13799","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-boudin-2022","category-fiction","tag-boudin","tag-bradyachterberg","tag-fiction"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13799","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13799"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13799\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":21318,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13799\/revisions\/21318"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13799"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13799"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mcneese.edu\/thereview\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13799"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}