I turned on the news. The streets were lit in blue and red light. I watched as paramedics loaded stretchers and witnesses described the scene. Michael’s phone went to voicemail. The sky was still dark. My father was still asleep. I took cash from his wallet and called a town car.
I felt nauseated on the ride to Brooklyn. I opened the window, but midtown traffic brought exhaust fumes and noise. The Times Square circus blinked above me. The driver called me ma’am and asked if I was okay. I said I was fine.
Light dimmed as the town car turned onto our block. Three men stood on the corner blowing smoke at the stars. The stars—all two—were barely visible in the cutout of sky between the oaks that stood like guards outside our building.
I climbed the stairs. I hoped Michael was home. With each step, my body felt heavier. For a moment, I feared that I’d reverse gears at the top and go tumbling back to the bottom. I could hear the cat crying. The door was unlocked.
Lights were on. The duvet was spread on the floor, like a picnic blanket, in the spot where our bed used to be. The air mattress lay deflated beside it. Michael was asleep on the duvet, fully clothed, sweating. A bedbug—the first I’d seen in days, though I assumed it would spawn more, repopulate the apartment—gnawed into a mole on Michael’s neck. A single hair sprouted from the mole. Blood swelled in an outer ring around the bull’s-eye of the abrasion.
It may have been a beetle or some other insect. In fact, I’m sure it was.
I sat on the edge of the bed. The cat licked Michael’s ear. I placed a hand on the small of his back. I borrowed his phone and ordered a car back to my dad’s.
Out front, wind ran cool across my body. The cat made cat sounds and scratched at my sweater. I lifted her above my head. She responded with a screech. I lowered the animal and watched it run free for the first time in its brief and now briefer life, feinting toward trash cans before scurrying southbound on Hoyt Street, some elusive, fleshly odor pointing toward darkness.
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Ricky’s still in control. He whispers, “I’m in control,” releases the links from his French cuff shirt, places them in a rinse cup beside the bed, rolls his sleeves, and fingers the bracelet.
Broder’s in the bathroom. The shower runs. Steam seeps from the partially open bathroom door. Ricky’s eyes close for a moment, but he forces them open. They’ve snorted Oxy mixed with blow, and drunk their share of tequila, and now, in the dark of the hotel’s false midnight, as sun peeks in around the edge of the blackout curtains, he wants nothing more than an hour of shuteye before heading into the office. First there’s the question of Broder.
They were together with Michael when the riot began, a rush of chanting people swinging pipes and bats, knocking partygoers to the ground. Some fought back, but most pushed toward the room’s only exit, the same door through which rioters continued to arrive. The congestion caused more blood. Skulls hit walls and bodies tumbled into decorations. The Lego Titanic crashed.
Amid this chaos, Ricky saw, or thought he saw, Sammy from last night across the room. Protester or guest, he couldn’t say, failing to remember if he’d told him about the party. Ricky yelled Sammy’s name, but no contact was made. The next thing he knew, he’d made it out unscathed.
They took the emergency stairs to the floor below, and barricaded themselves in the room that Ricky had presciently rented beforehand in case a need for privacy arose.
It was only then they realized that Michael was gone. Returning to find him wasn’t an option; a SWAT team had already arrived. Ricky’s been texting Michael since, to no avail.
A trip to the minibar got the party restarted while Ricky combed Twitter for reports from the scene upstairs. Broder rested his head on Ricky’s shoulder and served him small bumps of coke from his overgrown thumbnail. He’s been hanging on Ricky all night, and hasn’t balked at Ricky’s test runs, either: patting Broder’s butt, gripping his thigh, blowing air in his ear as Broder leaned on him in the elevator. As far as Ricky knows, Broder doesn’t have a gay bone in his body, but soon he will have a gay bone in his body. Ba-dum-ching. Ricky’s Viagra should kick in any second. He popped it an hour ago. His cock is slow in responding. Maybe it needs assistance.
Ricky stands from the bed, undoes his belt, and lets his pants drop. He pulls them over his ankles, and lies down again in just shoes, socks, and shirt. He feels like Big Bird. His hands are cold. His penis inches out of hiding.
For inspiration, Ricky surveys his sexual past. First, Michael. Well, technically, first was Evan Schmidt in third grade. They’d been playing doctor with Evan’s dad’s doctor bag, using his stethoscope to test the beat of each other’s hearts, when Ricky decided that Evan needed a full body exam. Five minutes later, Evan’s penis was in Ricky’s hand. Five days later, Ricky was in the principal’s office, unrepentant. Five years later, Evan was still in the closet and Ricky was a full-on faggot, and fuck you for calling him one, you closeted fuck. Fifteen years later, Evan was gay-bashed in a public park, Ricky was a Republican, and Ricky’s best friend’s hero was a rapper who encouraged impressionable teens to commit hate crimes.
Anyway, Michael. Ricky has loved him since childhood. The men he grew up with relied on grunts for communication. Michael was endearingly talkative. Ricky was too, in a sense, but Michael could talk about feelings in a way that Ricky wasn’t able to. Maybe it was a Jew thing, or growing up around teenaged girls, Michael’s melodramatic cousins who were
