Neal Pollack

“The day the envelope came,” he’d say, “you saw the rain dance on pickup hoods parked amongst the clapboard houses. The gutters were high with muddy water from the flooded fields. You held the letter and watched the weather coming over the interstate, the paper flecking wet, knowing your mother would worry all night about the creek rising behind the house. You cried with closed eyes, alone beneath the willow tree, happy you could blame your wet face on the rain.”

“I didn'’t see any of it. Not the way you say.”

Mike told his wife nothing. He only watched her look away and rub the cat’s ear between her thumb and forefinger. He knew they liked fighting more than understanding, and because of it, they’d forced each other away. She was there for the cat, not him, and he could feel good about that if he let himself. Either way, he thought, he’d jog different alleys tomorrow night, dreaming he could run until the dawn broke over the two-flat roofs, the morning light coming fast, chalky, then the palest blue.

DEATH MOUTH

BY AMY SAYRE-ROBERTS

Roscoe & Broadway

Turn at Cornelia. Follow the scent of fresh bread and sidewalk heat, the stale belly breath of the city. It raises a slight glow on the upper lip, a contagion like an unseasonably warm September. It will lead you to Dahlia’s. I like having espresso here at the end of the day. There’s always someone to meet at Dahlia’s; you never know what you’ll discover. I met Matthew on a night like that, a humid, Ciabatta-scented evening. Geographically, it’s easy for a straight boy faking his way around Wrigleyville to get “lost” and end up on Halstead or Broadway. He will say something like, “This is Boystown?” A beat. “I didn'’t realize.” Sure.

I sat a few tables in from the door to observe the comings and goings unnoticed; like a praying mantis, I court stillness and wait for an innocent to walk into my grasp. Sebastian, my favorite waiter, sidled by with drinks for another table, “Cover girl, 12 o’clock high.” Matt stood in the door, a young blond woman clutching his arm. The creative ones like to bring along a girl, someone to hold their hand. The boys want to check it out on the down low. They might as well be holding a Kewpie doll.

Let me just say, in terms of the market, Matt and his little doll were prime real estate located conveniently near the intersection of virginity and Vine. They wanted the same thing—someone to be gentle with them. He was looking for a door, and what can I say? I’m a gentleman. I held it wide open.

We made eye contact several times. I was RKO classic in a black cashmere turtleneck and chinos. Absolutely turned out. I get a color every four weeks, r4 with a touch of 3 to set my eyes. Armani Fatale. I wrote StephenLaFraise@hotmail. com on a hundred-dollar bill and waited for him to pay. I bumped into him at the counter and let the bill fall from my pocket. He picked it up and held it forth like a daisy.

“I think this is yours.”

I looked at his eyes.

“No, I think it’s yours. If you want it.”

Reading the bill from his palm, his mouth puckered a red oval.

Ciao, bella. I turned on heel and walked away. Really, I only speak Italian in coffee shops and where otherwise appropriate. French is my native come-on language.

I handled him like silk. He emailed me three days after the hundred-dollar night. We played around—friends, not for long, but at first. It took about a month. I love slow seduction, the foreplay, the gradual building of an orgasm. He was such a baby, a kitten learning about claws.

Matt’s foster parents were a loving Christian family who could not even comprehend the idea he might be gay. Denial. He became depressed. Denial. He considered killing himself. Denial. Blah. Blah. Blah. The first night we made love, he gave me a suicide note he wrote. A note he kept, anticipating opportunity.

“It helps me, you know, relieve the pressure just to keep it around, like I have an escape.”

I used to buy that bathos bullshit. I thought I was everything to him. I told him he didn'’t need it anymore. He gave it to me. The ultimate submission, admitting I was his father, his lover, a conqueror on a stolen horse. I held onto it, like a relic to Matt’s innocence. Proof apparent on the bride’s bloody bedsheet.

Problem is, you can’t count on virgin loyalty. At first it’s all doe-eyed devotion, but then he got confident and curious. A month ago he broke up with me.

I was tri-folding the new logo Ts when my lost boy sashayed into the store and dropped bullshit all over me like it was a shower. He knew I hate distraction when I’m arranging displays.

“He’'s punk,” he said. The second thing Matt told me about Eduardo, his new boy off the boat from Săo Paulo.

Matt has balls. We’ve only been apart one month and He’'s regaling me with tales of his new lover like the wounds are licked and clean. Curiosity again, why does no one learn from the cat?

I said, “What does that even mean?”

“I mean He’'s Sex Pistol, old-school punk. Jesus, he has a bi-hawk.”