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Not enough

We wait in the parking lot—a mowed field rather than the actual lot, which is rightly reserved for those with mobility issues. Amber and I were the second people to show up, which gives me the unenviable prerogative of scanning those passing on their way up Burger Hill. They either seem decades older than me or like literal children, with few people between the ages of fifteen and fifty. I fight the itching awareness that I might be calling people approximately my age "old." I do have friends who have celebrated their half-century birthday or who have gray hair and tired eyes. It is faintly possible I am not as young as my mind assures me.

Amber sits on my trunk, eating a roast beef sandwich, gorgeous in their Holly Golightly sunglasses. We wait for Kristina, who had invited us generally and specifically. It is a Monday, and most other weeks my answer would have been no, with regrets, but I have begun my summer break. How could I decline a moonlight hike?

I always love being around Amber. They are more my companion than anyone has been, in part because we give each other space when needed. I could not imagine loving this night without them. I would feel their absence like a missing shoe. Kristina is adventurous, sharing pictures from mountain peaks and forest waterfalls in three states. She seems to do this weekly, usually on her own, because she has no one in her life who is quite like a pair of matched shoes. We don't see her as often as we would like, but we appreciate every time we can join her for an experience.

I pledge

I assume I belong in queer spaces even though, when they are taking attendance, I mostly answer "present." Despite the eager expectations of my students, often those who will spend their lives grappling with their sexualities, I am not gay. I find men fairly repellant, sexually and often socially.

Most of my students are vehemently homophobic and transphobic. When I was at a nonsecure facility, we tended to get the residents who were queer, because there was no safer place to put them. Now that I am at the highest security facility, my students espouse that hating anyone outside their rigid gender and sexuality expectations is a cultural mandate. They will also do everything possible to touch one another. One astutely noted that they can either fight or do each other’s hair, so they have different braids three times a week. They cannot avoid that their desires do not rest in a binary, but they cannot accept it either. (Some also feel that wiping after using the toilet might be gay---and cleaning during showering definitely is---since it involves touching an ass. Their bigotry reeks in quite literal ways.)

I did not take a new picture

Leo steps from their car, looks fondly, and says I haven't changed at all. I may be twenty pounds lighter than I was during our relationship, I wear hats as much as possible, and I might not encourage close scrutiny of my face under glaring light, but close enough.

We had seen pictures of each other online. There have been no massive changes that are not recorded in these pixels.

finish adjusting our tattered Pride flag, which had come out of its holster and landed on the lawn. Amber directed me to replace it before Leo arrived, as they might consider it a hate crime to leave it in such an ignoble state.

Strange?

We arrived on time and milled about, having received strict orders that we would be left behind if we were late, and then would never get to see Stranger Things on Broadway. We piled on the bus before someone noted that, oh no, someone was very late! What a shame. Guess we have to leave him beh--- oh, the owner of the animal hospital who paid for all this? Yes, we can wait for the good doctor. We are possessed with infinite patience for he who footed the bill.

For about half an hour, people try to use the bus ride as an excuse for karaoke. I did not get a headcount, but the bus is nearly full. I suspect twenty-five of the probably thirty might prefer not to be handed the mic under the best of circumstances, which do not involve captive audiences.

The Mortifying Ordeal

Who is the real fool? (Me.)

A friend from college (with whom I am, as is the fashion, only connected on social media) posts a link to a podcast that quotes me. The host, Daisy Eagan, had messaged me weeks ago after finding my frankly exhaustive dissection of the Sam the Sandown Clown case and wanted to use my analysis. I was only too happy, as most of this was already in the world, and she required nothing more of me.

Jordan

Jordan

Jordan walks past me. We cannot blame him, as I am crouched in a corner, reading. He gives a polite nod, as one might give to any vagrant, and then does a double-take.

"Thomm! You scared me!"

"I am frightening," I say. "I am reading a book about serial killers, after all."

"A specific one?"

"The Black Dahlia," I hold the door open to Charlie-O's, as does he, both polite. We go through our own doors. "It's actually speculation on the author's part that there was another victim. I'm not sure I buy it, but it is convincing prose."