《8 Jude》


 Book I - Eden - Prologue - March 2008 - Greyhound

    "I''m here to pick up a ticket to San Francisco," I told a wizened woman behind a Greyhound kiosk. She had a glassy, faraway look in her eyes, blinking twice at me before resigning themselves to the lifeless allure of a boxy computer screen.


    "ID, please," she sighed at the screen. I handed mine over.


    As she typed in my information, I looked around.


    Fluorescent lights flickered over grimy beige floors. Arcade machines lined the walls, where a man slept, hunched over the handlebars of a motorcycle game. The smell of urine lingered menacingly. A man in many jackets slept on the floor next to a portable stereo blaring "Que Sera" by Wax Tailor.


    Gears crunched out my ticket, bringing my attention back to the listless Greyhound attendant, who ripped the ticket off and slipped it into an envelope. She picked up a black Sharpie and wrote a large number 8 on the back, circling it twice before handing it to me.


    "Get in the line behind Door 8," she muttered.


    I said thanks and grabbed my threadbare grey suitcase, supporting my backpack with my other arm, and walked into the crowd of poverty that is a Greyhound bus station. People with money travel by plane or train. Poor people take the bus, so naturally, you encounter a wide swath of humanity.


    Travelers of every color and background filled the cramped, neglected room. Several carried their belongings in black trash bags, unable to afford a suitcase. My clothes were deliberately nondescript: faded blue jeans and an oversized black cotton coat.


    I got in line behind a round man in a cowboy hat, then took out my spiral ring notebook. It would be a few minutes before bus 8 was ready to board, so I closed my eyes and went to Eden.


    Growing up, my family moved almost yearly, so I didn''t keep many friends. Instead of friends, I had books. Fantasy stories, mostly, but also history.


    Years ago, I read about monks who built ''memory palaces'' in their minds. They would imagine a castle or a church, for example, and then imagine building it, brick by brick, so they knew every crevice, every room.


    My ''memory palace'' was a planet. Eden. I''d go to Eden whenever the real world was too awful, or when I was bored and waiting for a bus. Eden had a history, two continents, islands, people, drama, and adventure.


    In my spiral ring notebook, I wrote about Inari, an island volcano, boiling graveyard of the firefox people, destroyed 30 years ago in His Holy Crusade against magical creatures.


    "Boarding, door 8 to San Francisco." A screeching speaker brought me back to Earth, as the cowboy in front of me shuffled forward. I sat in a window seat and hoped no one would talk to me. My long legs bumped against the seat in front of mine.


    A woman in her early 50''s sat next to me. "Hi, I''m Hellen," her voice was soft and deep. Silver streaks framed her face, reminding me of my mother. I nodded once.


    In the seat across from hers, a skinny woman with mossy brown hair looked over at me. "Hellen, you got a cute one!" the woman said merrily.


    My cheeks reddened. I wasn''t used to being complimented and didn''t know how to respond. "Aww, and he blushes! That''s adorable!" she giggled in delight. I buried myself in the window.


    "Oh, don''t mind her, love," Hellen said. "How far are you going?"


    For a furious moment, I wondered if I could ignore this seemingly-friendly woman. "San Francisco," I responded curtly and continued looking out the window, hoping she''d take the hint.


    "Oh, my daughter lives there! You''ll love it. It''s really something," she said, undaunted. "I''m getting off in Portland. My son''s getting married!"


    "Congratulations," I said flatly, still looking out the window.


    "Oh, bless you," she answered. I cringed. "What''s bringing you down to San Francisco?"


    "It''s far from my family, and that''s good enough for me."


    She paused with great concern. "Why do you want to get away from your family?"


    "I don''t see how that''s any of your business."


    She blinked several times. "How old are you, dear?"


    I hated that question. "I''m nineteen."


    "You''re a baby!"


    My irritation must have been evident, as she felt the need to apologize.


    "Oh, I''m sorry, dear. It''s just that I have grandkids almost your age. Tell me, do you have a job lined up there?"


    "Not yet. I bought my ticket last night. I''ll apply to places once I arrive."


    The lines on her face bunched together in concern. "I think you''ll find that more difficult than you''re expecting."


    I ignored her observation and picked up my spiral ring notebook. Hellen seemed hurt, but I pretended to not notice. Instead, I looked out the window. The bus was pulling out of the station. In the distance, I saw Mount Rainier, a sleeping volcano, Seattle''s everlasting monument to doom and beauty, commanding the skyline. I imagined it erupting, spewing fire and stone into the sky. In my mind, it became Inari, and I was back on Eden.


    The smoking, boiling ruins of Inari could be seen from the nearest Vulpen Island, Crescent, a jungle of ancient trees with two urban spaces: a marketplace on the harbor of the bay and the slope that led up to Castle Moondial. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.


    Built and carved into the stone at the highest point on the island, Castle Moondial towered over the rest of Crescent and cast a long shadow on the ocean below. Outside the castle, a crowd cheered wildly as two combatants faced off in a square.


    The crowd surged like a wave as Rafael Avalyn yelled a battle cry. Rafael was only fourteen, yet he had a strange magnetism. The audience held their breath as he attacked his opponent, feinted, parried, then danced around, spinning his staff beautifully.


    The sun was high and bright. The ocean breeze, cool and refreshing.


    Above the square and crowd, on a balcony built into the castle wall, sat Crescent''s stewarding family. They could see the entire island of Crescent from their seats.


    Steward Arthur Avalyn wanted to watch his son compete, but his attention was needed elsewhere. Captain Reynard was escorting an unfamiliar guest to the shaded balcony Arthur shared with his daughters Morgan and Lyn and his mother Henrietta. Only Arthur and Morgan stood to greet the man. Lyn was young enough, and Henrietta was old enough, to get away with remaining seated.


    "Welcome to Crescent, Good Brother. We''re honored by your presence," said Steward Avalyn. Captain Reynard stepped back to observe.


    Brother Timothy was short and gaunt, with strawberry blonde hair and black robes. A simple-looking man, except for the eye. His left eye was a vertical slit, like a cat''s eye. It had a soul-chilling effect, like looking into the eye of a killer.


    "The pleasure is all mine, Steward Avalyn," said Timothy with a grin, and Arthur believed it. Expectancy lit Brother Timothy''s face. The man was ecstatic, eerily so. They held hands in greeting, and a chill ran through Arthur''s body like ice down an empty stomach.


    "Your¡­ arrival takes me by surprise, Good Brother. Of course, accommodations will be prepared. Perhaps you wish to retire before we discuss this new change in policy?" Steward Avalyn offered, hoping the good brother would leave so Arthur could cheer for his son. Arthur heard the audience groan in unison but stayed focused.


    "No, not at all. I insist on watching the show," said Timothy.


    Morgan vacated her seat for the Good Brother and moved to sit beside her grandmother.


    Timothy dropped into Steward Avalyn''s right-hand seat with pomp, still grinning. "I''ve been looking forward to this conversation. I''m here to inform you that the Lord Father assigned me to be your new Holy Advisor and your children''s new governor."


    Arthur''s response was immediate and well-rehearsed. "Of course, I bow to the wisdom of the Holy Father. Might I ask, why now?" Steward Avalyn chose his words carefully. "I only ask that I might serve Him better."


    The good brother remained silent, staring into Avalyn''s eyes with a grin. Arthur glanced toward his son and saw Rafael was in the corner.


    "Dutiful of you," Timothy quipped finally, demanding Arthur''s attention again. "It''s the Lord Father''s wish that all five Islands of Vulpex be consolidated into a single domain with a single emissary. Rafael is being considered for that position. I''m here to determine if he is deserving and, if he is, advise him."


    "That''s-- wow! That''s wonderful. We''ll prepare your room for an extended stay, then?"


    "I suspect I''ll stay here for the rest of my life," Timothy grinned.


    Arthur turned again to watch his son nimbly spin in the air, with the tip of his staff barely striking his opponent''s hand, breaking several bones. The man''s staff fell to the floor, and Rafael knocked it out of the square.


    Captain Reynard''s voice magickt in Arthur''s ear, "He''s trying to provoke a reaction out of you. We need to find out what he knows. I''ll send Apple to spy on him."


    "Excellent," Arthur cheered, but his mind was preoccupied. Good Brother Timothy was a snake if ever there was one, and Arthur invited the snake into his home! Not that he had a choice in the matter. Refusing an emissary of the Holy Father was suicide. The only response available to him was gratitude and humility. He hated it. Timothy''s smug smile burned into Arthur''s mind like an ugly brand.


    Meanwhile, the crowd below was chanting Rafael''s name. He won.


    April 2008 - Greyhound


    "What''s that you''re writing, dear?" Hellen''s question brought me back to Earth. The sunset reflected off Pacific waters. The toilet in the back of the bus was no longer in service, and the smell of human waste permeated. My back was stiff from sitting for hours.


    I looked at Hellen suspiciously. No one had taken an interest in my writing before. But in her silver-framed face, I saw she was simply bored and trying to pass the time.


    "It''s just a fantasy story. You''d probably find it tedious," I answered.


    "Nonsense. I have eight grandchildren," she said, "and I love hearing their stories. Besides, still another hour or so before my stop. Tell me your story. What''s it about?"


    "Well, I guess it started as a story about Adam and Lilith," I said.


    "Who?"


    "Lilith. Adam''s first wife, before Eve."


    "I haven''t heard of Lilith."


    "That''s probably because she isn''t in the Bible. The earliest references I could find of Lilith were in Jewish myths, as a demon who ate babies. She was later reappropriated in a profane book called the Alphabet of Sirach, which details her banishment from Eden for demanding equality with Adam.


    "The book was lewd and satirical. It wasn''t supposed to be taken seriously; yet priests and rabbis took the story and re-reappropriated it as a cautionary tale for women who might rebel against the patriarchy. It''s kinda funny because these days, she''s been re-re-reappropriated as a patron saint of feminists. You might have heard about the Lilith Fair."


    "That''s interesting. No, I haven''t," said Hellen.


    "Yeah, I''m full of interesting, useless information."


    "So your story is about Lilith, then?"


    "More like she''s pulling the strings. Lilith was banished to Nod, which is this harsh, bleak place where she lives underground because the winds are so deadly.


    "Meanwhile, Adam and Eve rule Eden. They were made perfect, so they''re immortal, but because they ate the Forbidden Fruit, their children grow old and die. Millenia has passed. Adam is obsessed with breaking the curse that kills his children. Lilith is obsessed with revenge against Adam and even God. My characters live in Eden under Adam''s rule."


    Hellen smiled widely. "That''s fascinating! And you know the Bible! How wonderful. It''s so nice to see young men who read the Lord''s book."


    "No, I''ve never read the Bible. My mom raised me, and she claims to be Christian, but she isn''t, really. She took us to church a few times, but I don''t believe in the Christian God."


    That surprised Hellen. She looked offended. "Then why are you writing about Bible stories?"


    "Because I grew up on them. They''re what I know, and they''re entertaining, but I don''t believe in Jesus any more than I believe in Superman."


    Hellen wrung her hands. "It''s disrespectful to reduce our holiest icon to pop fiction. Even if you don''t believe, can you at least show a little respect for those of us who do?"


    "Mm. No. See, because Christians systematically wiped out entire cultures. You devoured pagan myths and plagiarized them as your own. You demand the respect you deny others. So, no. The most I can offer you is my sympathy, and that''s only when I have the patience to give it."


    Hellen was white in the face, stunned to silence.


    I leaned in for the finisher, whispering, "And by the way, I''m gay as Hell. That''s why I chose San Francisco: I''m gonna go fuck some guys. Like a train of guys. It''s gonna get weird."


    Then I picked up my spiral ring notebook and mechanical pencil, ignoring Hellen again. It was awkward for a minute after that. Thankfully, the bus pulled into Portland, where Hellen and her friend got off.


    "I''ll pray for you," she said in lieu of goodbye.


    "Save your breath," I hollered back. No one sat next to me for the rest of the trip.


    As the Greyhound bus carried on to California, the ocean waves outside my window carried me back to Eden.

 April 2008 - San Francisco

    My bus arrived in San Francisco around midnight.


    I grabbed a map of the city and found the nearest public library.


    I love libraries. In school, when other kids ran to the playground during recess, I went to the library and read fantasy stories in a comfortable corner. I learned to research at an early age, so I knew I''d find the information I needed in a library.


    The main city library was beautiful. Eight tall stories high, built of granite, with a glass ceiling, providing lots of natural light. Rows of staircases and bookshelves spiraled upwards, resembling a double helix.


    I went to the information desk and asked for help finding homeless shelters and job search centers in the city. The librarian didn''t seem surprised. Skinny teenagers must have been inquiring about homeless services with some regularity. She printed a few pages of information, and that''s how I learned about Larkin Street Youth Services.


    It was 2008. Some rich bankers had gambled with everyone else''s money, and millions lost their homes. The economy was in freefall. Austerity was the word of the day. Social programs were slashed nationwide. Homelessness was an epidemic. Hundreds of thousands of people from across the nation had come to San Francisco, fleeing poverty, hoping for a better life. In the harsh light of day, I saw them sleeping in abandoned doorways and huddling together for respite from the cold April winds.


    Larkin Street Youth Services'' federal budget had been cut in half. It would endure more cuts before the economy rebounded. All 50 beds in the Lark Inn were full. I wrote my name at the bottom of a long list of names, and they told me to check in every day to move up the list. It would be five weeks before a bed opened. They also gave me a paper bag. Inside was a thin PB&J and a banana. A few doors down was the Larkin Drop-In, where homeless youth could rest and eat during the day. Next door was an employment and training center. I asked around, and everyone gave the same advice: make a friend. Find a couch.


    I wasn''t very good at making friends and didn''t know how to trust people. So instead, I explored the city, looking for a place to sleep outside. I spent days walking to every corner of the water-walled city. At night, I retrieved my luggage and brought it to the safest place I found on my search. I trespassed at a dozen places or more. No construction site, dark alley, or stairway escaped my consideration. I jumped fences and slept in trees. I passed a thousand homeless people curled up on the sidewalk. Those wretched dark and shivering doorways seemed unambitious. I wanted something more.


    I found it on the third day of searching: the rooftop of a parking garage. To reach it, I took an elevator up five floors, stepped out onto a fire escape, climbed some stairs and a ladder, crossed the roof, descended a different ladder, and then jumped onto another roof. But seeing the stars and city at night made it worth the trouble.


    My rooftop had a broken water tower, with a man-sized tube for me to crawl in to take shelter from the misty rain. Most nights, the winds carried the music of a homeless saxophonist playing for change on the street below. I gave him more money than I could spare. In truth, it was one of the happiest times of my life.


    But nights in San Francisco can be cold and long. Some nights I couldn''t sleep. I''d walk up and down Market Street, stopping at a 24-hour fast food joint to stay warm. The security guards would wake me up whenever I closed my eyes. What little money I had only lasted long enough for my food stamps application to process. When my food stamps ran out, as they did on the third week of every month, I stole food from Walgreens or Safeway.


    Next, I started looking for work. Larkin''s employment center helped me improve and print my resume, and by May, I was working as a teller at a check cashing store in the Tenderloin. Locals call the Tenderloin ''an island of poverty in a sea of immense wealth.'' My store''s clients were mainly disabled veterans and societal rejects, either denied service by banks or through their own deliberate disavowal of mainstream society. Some were noble, many were swindlers, most were sad and miserable, but it was a living. By late May, my name reached the top of Larkin''s list, and a bed opened up in the Lark-Inn Shelter.


    I dragged my belongings to the shelter and secured them in a locker beside my bed. I shared the room with three other people. Having secured my basic needs, I explored San Francisco and returned to the library to research how to be gay. I read about Castro Street, Harvey Milk, Marsha P. Johnson, Stonewall, and some history of Queer civil rights.


    I also learned about cruising. In the before time, pre-internet, gays would walk down the street and try to make eye contact with passersby. If someone met their gaze, they''d turn around after passing to look again.


    Since Grindr wasn''t a thing yet, and I had limited access to the internet, I figured I would try my hand at cruising. I walked to Castro Street, San Francisco''s affluent gay district, and found a seat with a view of the sidewalk so I could watch as men passed by.


    Like everything else in life, I thought of it as a game or experiment, practicing how to meet people, how to have sex, how to fall in love. And I did want to fall in love.


    But what I really wanted was for someone to fix me. I felt broken. Unlovable. I wanted someone to help me put back my broken pieces and quiet my screaming mind, to hold me tight and tell me I was safe and it would all be okay.


    Sadly, that''s not what the men on Castro Street wanted from me.


    See, I dropped out of high school when I was 16 to work two jobs, and I was never good at making friends, anyway. So my exposure to people outside of my immediate family was limited. I''d never even kissed a boy until three days prior, but that''s a story for a different book. The point is, I was about to be told, over and over again, by total strangers that I was attractive, relatively speaking. Think Ryan Reynolds, but 19. Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.


    I only mention it because, from their perspective, I was fresh meat, vulnerable, inexperienced, and ripe for the taking. The way wolves look at a deer alone in the woods. That''s how they saw me. I wanted someone to fix me. They wanted a meal.


    I lost count of how many men there were. At first, I thought they wanted me. Then I realized it was my body they wanted. Once they had my body, they''d lose interest in me because that''s the nature of wolves: they''re hunters.


    It didn''t do wonders for my already shaky self-esteem. As my sex partners multiplied, so did the number of men who didn''t call or text me back. Every time I returned to Castro to meet someone new, I grew a little more distrusting, a little more certain that something was broken in me. Why else would so many men take me and then forget about me completely?


    And when my fears were confirmed, as they often were, the screaming would start. There were no words, not even a noise, just a blood-curdling scream of rage and pain and fear that echoed in my mind. My imagination would envision me pulling my hair and crying and banging my head into things. But in reality, I''d be sitting at a table somewhere on Castro Street, calmly drinking a hot cup of coffee as strangers walked by.


    I met a string of fuckbois, narcissists, and drug addicts. I met men who never grew up. Men who tried to fill the void in themselves, sometimes with alcohol, sometimes with sex, or drugs, or money, or something else.


    I met more than a few good men. More often than not, I messed something up, and they ghosted me. But I kept meeting people, and as I met more people, I learned more about myself and others. I learned how to communicate.


    But the more people I met, the more alien I felt. Alone in the city and utterly inept at intimacy, I had nothing and no one. But I had a few things going for me, namely being a skinny, pretty, white twink with sharp cheekbones and bright blue eyes.


    You see, the mainstream gay community is racist AF on the DL, with several prejudices, spoken and unspoken, running through it like veins. There are a variety of gay subgroups, most of which serve to reinforce the established hierarchy (adhering to the values of white supremacy, money, and masculine power), but everyone is fetishized and objectified to some extent by someone or other. Gays sort themselves into ''tribes'' of furries, puppies, bears, cubs, otters, wolves, silver foxes, rice queens, white rice, sticky rice, daddies, bros, jocks, twinks, twunks, queens, queers, chubs, chasers of every variety, and many more.


    Almost 8 billion people in the world, and everyone has different tastes. No matter who you are or what you look like, someone thinks you''re the sexiest thing alive. But not everyone is in equal demand. Being young, white, and conventionally good-looking opened many doors while shutting a few others. Total strangers wanted things from me and gave me stuff, lots of stuff, just for showing up. And I traded on my good fortune. Alone in San Francisco, I was grateful for whatever reason people were nice to me. God knows not everyone was. Some people were outright cruel. Do you know the song "Another Suitcase in Another Hall" from Evita? I know. Musical reference. Gay. Whatever. That song sets the tone I''m going for here.


    Anyway, I don''t remember much. Partly because I was experimenting with drugs and alcohol for the first time and partly because I don''t think there were many memories worth holding onto back then.


    But maybe I deserved it. I was insecure, impulsive, and dishonest with myself and, therefore, with everyone else. For that reason, I suspect, people didn''t trust me. Even when I spoke the truth, people didn''t believe me, so I lied more. With every strange man I met, I practiced a different version of myself.


    That''s how I approached each new encounter, like a game. I would envision a better version of myself. Perhaps I''d have no family. Perhaps I''d be visiting from Utah. Perhaps I''d be sweet and naive. Or maybe dark and stoic.


    He would take me to dinner somewhere, and I''d watch him watch me, observe his ticks, smiles, and frowns, like a scientist jotting mental notes. Little things like where to put my hands, how to use a knife and fork, how loud I should talk to waiters, fundamental stuff most normal people take for granted. I needed practical experience, and I got it from one man after another. Sometimes I had sex with them. Usually. Not always. Once, I traded sex for money.


    I was dating someone at the time. Kevin. Had great hair, a cute dimple when he smiled, and the sex was excellent, but his mind was erratic. His emotions were wild and unpredictable. He was never violent, but he was unstable. Most importantly, he was kind to me. He wanted me around. He was also homeless, and we were about the same age, so we had stuff in common.


    One day he suggested I try hustling, as he called it. He said boys like me could make thousands of dollars a week hustling. It was like a rite of passage, he said. Every gay boy in the city does it at least once.


    I can neither confirm nor deny that last sentence, but I can say that I did it at least once. I used craigslist to find my john, back before the government gutted craigslist to ''protect us,'' ironically taking power and autonomy out of the hands of vulnerable sex workers.


    The john and I talked a bit online at first, exchanging information and the usual. When all was agreed upon, I walked to his house. He was kind and generous. I pretended to be Julia Roberts before she met Richard Gere. You know, confident and sexy, like, I know what I''m doing because I''ve done it all before. The sex was fine, and the money was nice, but I felt cheap. It''s hard to explain. I would have had sex with the same guy for free. He was good-looking and seemed nice enough. It was an otherwise normal hook-up, except this time, I was paid for it. And for whatever reason, I didn''t like that. I thought I''d be pleased. I got off, and I made some quick cash, but I didn''t like feeling up for sale.


    So I bought a caramel frappuccino from Starbucks to make myself feel better. An impractical thing. A luxury I couldn''t afford, a lifestyle I wasn''t born into but could taste for a small price. Next, I bought an MP3 player, so I could listen to music again. The first albums I downloaded were "Attack and Release" by the Black Keys and "The Sunset Tree" by the Mountain Goats. I spent the rest on necessities, like minutes on my phone, deodorant, razors, and other things food stamps can''t buy.


    I resolved not to do sex work again. It wasn''t a traumatic experience. I don''t regret it, but I didn''t enjoy it. I also decided to end things with Kevin. I had enough problems without adding his to the mix. He later went to prison for money laundering, so leaving was probably the right call on my part.


    Meanwhile, Lark-Inn Shelter had an 8 pm curfew. So at the end of each day, I would wait outside for my name to be called. If I wasn''t present, Lark-Inn would give my bed away to someone else, and I would fall back to the bottom of the list. For a month, I drifted to sleep listening to the snores and farts of forty-nine other street urchins; my spiral ring notebook on the floor next to my bed, so I could write notes of my dreams. And when I dreamed, I dreamed of Eden.

 May 2008 - Jes & Dante

    I woke up on a polyurethane mattress designed to prevent bedbugs. It stuck to my skin like adhesive and left bright red marks on my face. My three bunkmates and I shambled out of bed as the warden shouted that it was time to leave the shelter. Breakfast would be over in 30 minutes, and then they would kick us out by force if necessary.


    I stumbled into the common room that smelled like bleach and choked down a breakfast of donated cold cereal. Some fellow guttersnipes chatted nearby.


    "Hey, new guy," an outgoing transgirl at the end of the table called to me. Her name was Faerie. She wore lots of dark eyeliner, hot pink lipstick, and torn clothes. Her hair was dyed cyan. "We''re having a friendly disagreement and need a third party tiebreaker. Who would win in a fight, Batman or Iron Man?"


    Behind her, a grainy bootleg copy of Iron Man was playing on an old television, likely what prompted the discussion. Both Tony Stark and Bruce Wayne were billionaire tycoon vigilantes. As a comic book geek, I had already given this question a lot of thought.


    "That depends on too many variables; location, context," I responded.


    "No, no," spoke Faerie''s friend, Alex. His voice was soft and deliberately lowered. He had no facial hair but short brown hair on top. Both of them were early in their transition. "Colosseum fight to the death. No reasons. No explanations. Who wins?" he demanded.


    "In that case, probably Iron Man."


    "That is horseshit!" Faerie slammed her fist on the table. "Batman would set off an electromagnetic pulse, kick Tony Stark''s little bitch ass, and call it entertainment! Without his suit, he''s just a narcissist."


    "Sorry, baby, but that''s Iron Man 2, Batman 1." Alex''s taunt was said with affection, which confused me, but then I figured it out. They were two trans people going in opposite directions together. It was so charming I couldn''t help but smile.


    "You, sir, strange new person, are so wrong!" Faerie pointed her finger at me, but I wasn''t ready to concede yet.


    I responded, "In a sudden death cage match, the Invincible Iron Man would blow up Batman with his many guided missiles. Tony Stark is a genius, but Bruce Wayne is a mastermind. If he had the time to devise a plan of attack, Batman would win."


    "That sounds like Bruce Wayne 2, Tony Stark 1, peach," Faerie shot back at Alex.


    "He said both and neither. Screw it. It doesn''t matter, anyway."


    They went back to talking to each other and ignored me. I stretched my neck to watch the movie; when a small tangle of a girl, who happened to be in my line of sight, looked at me and yelled, "The fuck are you looking at, bitch?"


    "Nothing." I twitched and tried to act normal. "I was just watching the movie."


    "It''s a piece of shit." The girl stumbled to sit across from me. Alex and Faerie got up and left, and I thought about following them. Instead, I tried acting casual, like I get verbally accosted all the time. I''m an expert at this, my body language said. The effect seemed to make the crazy girl both unsure and derisive, but she was too dull to notice. We locked eyes, and I asked her name.


    She blinked several times in surprise but finally said, "Jesse. Jes. Call me Jes."


    "I''m Sebastian. You can call me Bastian. What are you in for?" I asked, trying to be jocular.


    "Ran away when I was fifteen. Been homeless ever since." Her head bobbed, and she glared at me as she said it, daring me to offer advice or condemnation.


    Instead, I asked her about her life. Jes told me when she was twelve, her father gave her meth and then raped her. It went on for years until she ran away. She made friends with a string of sleazy men and kept to herself over the next several years, rapidly losing her grip on sanity.


    She had been an addict since before she knew what the word meant, her life was destroyed by the very person who should have protected her. To compound the injustice of it, the world feared and avoided her. I might have been the first person in weeks to ask her about her day. She didn''t make sense all the time, but I think she was grateful for the company. She needed help, someone to love and take care of her. In a few months, I would see Jes'' picture on a wall and discover that she had died of a heroin overdose.


    Most people look away from poverty. I didn''t have the luxury of looking away. It was my existence. Fortunately for me, I''ve never felt at home. My sense of ''otherness'' worked in my favor on the streets. I wasn''t like them, or so I told myself, so I didn''t stay long or make friends. The few I was friendly toward, I kept at bay. Instead, I spent more time on Castro Street, cruising and meeting people.


    One night I went to a toga party at an acquaintance''s house. Only men attended, and all were nearly nude. "Paper Planes" by M.I.A. was playing over the house speakers, and young men were dancing in the open spaces between furniture.


    I didn''t know anyone there, and I was still shy and soft-spoken, so I kept to the edges and sipped from my red Solo cup, feeling nervous and full of adventure. It wouldn''t be long before someone came up to talk to me, so I watched the dancers and tried to act bored but not too bored.


    Before long, a dashing young man stepped forward to greet me. He was handsome in a way I''d never seen before, with narrow, golden eyes and short, auburn curls.


    "Hi, I''m August," he said and thrust out his hand formally. His voice was low and precise. He wore a toga made of military camouflage material.


    "Hi, I''m Sebastian," I said softly, and my heart skipped when he smiled at me.You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.


    "Are you here with anybody?" he asked.


    "No. I don''t know anyone here. The owner just invited me online. I wasn''t sure I''d come."


    "Well, now you know someone here."


    I blushed and smiled. He scared me, he was handsome and friendly. I so wanted him to like me.


    "Are you here with anyone?" I parroted. I sucked at making small talk, but I knew to ask questions. People love talking about themselves.


    "Yeah, I''m with my boyfriend and our friends," he answered. My smile diminished imperceptibly. "We noticed you over here sitting by yourself, and I thought I''d lend a hand. Come, sit by me."


    He was so gracious, I could hardly refuse. So I followed him to sit on a curved, white, leather couch. Multiple gay boys were sprawled out and nuzzling each other in a way that sent blood rushing to my dick. Introductions were shared, and August sat next to me, his thigh touching my thigh. Many of the men looked me up and down. August''s boyfriend, Travis licked his lips and leaned forward to speak. He was nearing middle age, with a pale, pinched face and a confident voice.


    "So, Sebastian, we were just discussing how Mayor Gavin Newsom signed a bill into effect, and we can get married now. Isn''t that wonderful?"


    "I suppose. I read about it some, but to be honest, it feels weird to me that marriage is our main political issue. From what I''ve seen, Queer communities are crippled by medical expenses, drug addiction, and homelessness. Did you know over 40 percent of the homeless youth in America are Queer? Their families disown them, or they run away, and then they fall through the cracks. Or worse, they''re sent to gay conversion camps, which are effectively torture centers. Why aren''t we focusing our efforts there, instead of on an issue that mostly affects affluent people?"


    Travis blinked and cocked his head to the side as if he heard an unfamiliar noise.


    "I think as you get older, you''ll understand that we''re fighting for dignity. We''re demanding a seat at the table. We can''t fix those issues if we aren''t respected and a part of the decision-making process."


    I flushed with embarrassment. The first thing I said at a party was childish. I sipped my drink and shrank into the couch. Dante, a sharp-dressed young man with luscious black locks and a roguish face, spoke up, "I think I hear what Bastian''s saying. Marriage doesn''t help homeless teenagers."


    "Yes," admitted Travis, his voice rising, "but that''s beside the point. Our fight is about common law. It''s for human dignity and being heard-"


    "Let''s change the subject," loudly interrupted a bleached blonde chubby man who called himself Starr. As he spoke, he caressed the thigh of a nearly unconscious man who rolled his head away and grunted. "Sebastian," he continued, "You''re new here, aren''t you? Where are you from?"


    "Farmville, Washington. I only arrived in San Fran two months ago."


    "Whoa," Dante interjected. "First thing you gotta learn is, nobody says San Fran. It''s San Francisco or The City. SF is acceptable, and Frisco might be okay, depending on who you ask, but never San Fran."


    "Oh," I said meekly. "Thanks for letting me know."


    "No biggie," he smiled, and our eyes locked. "Do you smoke weed?" He asked.


    "I''ve smoked twice before. I like it, but I also kind of don''t.


    "Well, I''ve got some smoke if you want to join me outside."


    "Yeah, okay." My heartbeat jumped and skipped. Dante seemed effortlessly charismatic. His every word and gesture had style. I liked him at once. We went out to the veranda, and I smoked for the third time in my life. My vision was beginning to sway. My fears and inhibitions melted away. Dante and I flirted for a while. I can''t remember what we talked about, but I know I dodged most of his questions. He was so charming and attractive. I wanted him to like me. If he knew the truth about me, he would find me a fraud. I didn''t belong in his world any more than I belonged in Jes'' world. Indeed, I had more in common with her than I did with him.


    When Dante noticed I was being evasive, his questions became more pointed. I was a game to him, a mystery to solve, but I wasn''t having it. When he asked where I lived, I leaned in, kissed him, and said, "your place is closer."


    He toked his joint and looked at me bemusedly. "So eager. You don''t want to wait a little? Aren''t you afraid I won''t respect you in the morning?"


    I thought about it for a moment and took a step toward him, grabbing the joint from his fingers. "I don''t much care either way," I bluffed and puffed. "It''s up to you. I turn into a pumpkin in a few minutes, anyway."


    "How come? You gotta curfew?"


    "Something like that, yeah. I could spend the night over there, or I could spend the night with you. Which would you prefer?"


    He took the joint back and considered me with curiosity and fear. "I just met you. What if you''re an assassin or a spy or something?"


    I laughed. "That is ridiculous. Do I look threatening? What, you wanna frisk me? Pat me down?" I said with a wink.


    He laughed with me. "That might put my mind at ease, yeah."


    So I took a step closer, held his hands, and put them on my chest. "Let me know if you find a wire. I''ll be so embarrassed."


    He grinned nervously and let his hands explore my body, my arms, my back, and finally grab my ass. Dante pulled me in and kissed me right. I felt his erection through his jeans.


    He lived a mile away up a hill. We stopped several times to kiss and grope each other. The sex was fantastic. It was the first time I enjoyed bottoming. All the other times, it was hot but uncomfortable, but with Dante, he fit. It felt great. We did it three times that night and into the morning. In the afterglow, I told him the truth about me. I was afraid he''d move away, but he didn''t.


    In the morning, he woke me with breakfast in bed. Homemade french toast with maple syrup and a side of fruit. I was mystified. Never in my life had someone done such a thing for me, and I fell madly in love with him in that instant, though he never knew it. He showered while I ate and inspected his collection of books. I recognized a few. I knew one from TV, The Audacity of Hope, Barack Obama''s campaign memoir.


    The 2008 US presidential election was in full swing. On the right, John McCain, war veteran, maverick (whatever that meant). On the left, still unfolding, an epic primary battle between the future first Black president versus the future first woman nominated by a major party, a clash of titans, Barack Obama vs Hillary Clinton.


    Political journals, magazines, biographies, and studies were scattered across his desk, coffee table, and bookshelves. Dante was a news junkie. He returned wearing nothing but a towel and a thick mane of chest hair. Noticing my curiosity, he asked, "Have you been following the election?"


    "A little. Not much. Seems everyone is sick of Bush and the Republicans, so whoever the Democrats choose will probably go on to be president. Who do you think will win?"


    "Oh, Clinton, definitely," he said with confidence. "All the polls, everyone says the same thing. Obama won a few early states, but Clinton will sweep the western states. She''s got the political influence. It''s all about who you know."


    That sounded right. He was so well-read and mature, though only twenty-nine. I thought he was everything I wanted to be. He knew people. He knew stuff. He read things and brushed his teeth every night and morning, just like you''re supposed to.


    "Anyway, I''ve got a class in an hour," he dropped the towel to the ground and pressed himself against me. "Plenty of time." He kissed me. I leaned away in his arms.


    "I need a shower, too. Plus, I just ate, and I haven''t used the bathroom yet. I''m not ready."


    "That''s okay," he said while bouncing on the balls of his feet, "I cleaned out in the shower. It''s your turn to fuck me."


    I was an insecure top and didn''t last long, but Dante was kind about it. I showered and left, and we didn''t talk for over a year. He ghosted me over text.


    My imagination went into overdrive, offering explanations why he didn''t want me. Why I was unworthy. I would lay in bed for hours with my mind screaming. The only peace I could find was when I closed my eyes and returned to Eden.

 August 2008 - Dani & Nathan

    I stayed at Lark-Inn Shelter for more than two months. I worked hard and kept to myself, and eventually, my application was accepted by Castro Youth Housing, a program that provided transitional housing for homeless Queer youth. They moved me into an SRO, a single square room, in an old building with shared bathrooms on each floor. The walls were yellow from years of cigarette smoke. The carpet was a deep red that clashed with faded, green molding, but it was a warm space, and it was mine.


    It took months before Larkin could afford to hire new caseworkers, but eventually, I was assigned one by the name of Dani. It was her job to counsel me and advocate on my behalf if necessary, and I thought she was the neatest person ever. She had more facial hair than I had, with short dark hair, glasses, and several tattoos. Her breasts were so tightly bound they were almost unnoticeable.


    "Let''s get to know each other," she smiled warmly when we met, and her voice conveyed professional compassion. I admired her right away.


    "What do you want to know?" I shrugged.


    "What do you want to do with your life?" She inquired.


    I pondered the question and answered, "I used to want to be a therapist because people are fascinating, and I like helping people. But the more I think about it, the less I want to listen to people complain all day. Some folks are great, and I''m sure that would be rewarding, but most people are awful. I don''t know how you do it.


    "These days, I want to be an author. I''ve got this fantasy story I''ve been working on for a few years. But I''m not good enough yet. I need to go to college and learn how to write properly."


    "You want to go to college?"


    "Yeah! Very much. I feel like I don''t know anything. The other day, I was at a party, and these guys were talking politics, and I made a total ass out of myself. I feel like an idiot. I can''t speak my mind because I don''t know anything. But I want to learn, and I want to be better."


    "That''s great. That''s really great. We can work on your application for City College of San Francisco. It''s a great school. But I read you''ve been in California for only five months, is that right?"


    "Yeah," I said. "Is that a problem?" Her sympathetic face looked me up and down.


    "Out-of-state tuition is thousands of dollars more a semester. Financial aid exists, but it runs out. If you''re paying out-of-state tuition, your aid will run out before even getting an Associate''s Degree. You''re better off waiting a year before enrolling." I must have looked disappointed because she said, "That just gives you more time to prepare. Let''s get back to you."


    "Are you trying to shrink me?"


    "Well, I''m not trying to bullshit you, Sebastian. I read your application. Quite frankly, based on the two pages you provided, I''m in awe; but I think you''ll have some emotional baggage to sort through, and that''s why I''m here. Sometimes, when we''re in the muck of our own problems, we lose sight of the big picture. An impartial third party can be helpful to bounce ideas off of. I want you to think of me as a resource and this as a safe space. I''m not going to judge you or condemn you. That''s not my job. My job is to help in whatever ways you need."


    I considered her for a moment in silence.


    "We can work up to it," she said with a smile. "In the meantime, let''s start with the basics. Where is your family, and why are you here?"


    I scratched my chest absentmindedly and sighed. "My parents divorced when I was three. My dad was more of a sperm donor. Last I heard, he has a replacement family, and they all live in Oklahoma. I don''t know much about him or his family.


    My mom still lives in Washington. We''re in contact, but we don''t talk often. It wouldn''t make sense if I just blurted out the whys. I''ll have to start at the beginning¡­"


    My Gramma Nora was the daughter of Irish and Polish immigrant families escaping the potato famine and WWII, respectively. She went to school and got an engineering job at Boeing, where she met Grampa, and they had 3 children. Grampa left Gramma for another woman when Mom was 8, but Gramma got the house. Nora was our anchor, sometimes brutal, but she loved us immensely. My mom Patsy hated her.


    Patsy once told me she felt like the black sheep of the family; the eldest child, but not a son; not the smartest, not the favorite, always overlooked and underappreciated. She said all she ever wanted was to be a mother, to have someone to love unreservedly and who loved her singularly.


    Patsy was 21 when she gave birth to Tom, my older brother. This was in 1975. Tom''s father wanted nothing to do with her or the baby. Gramma and Grampa were both super Catholic, so Patsy and her bastard baby were ostracized. Patsy took the baby and ran away to California.


    That''s where my parents met in 1984. Patsy was 28, raising Tom on her own. She found work cleaning hotels and houses. John was 24 and working at a mortuary. He was some kind of shaman, dressed all in black; and leaning into his Native ancestry, with a long black ponytail. They had a love affair and honeymooned in San Francisco.


    Tom adored John. Like all abandoned boys, Tom desperately wanted a father figure. John was strong and tall, warm, with a generous nature. So when Patsy got pregnant again, everyone was elated.


    But on August 8, 1985, Patsy gave birth to a stillborn girl they named Anna. The family was devastated. Patsy''s postpartum depression was unbearable. They moved to Washington so Patsy could be with her family. It wasn''t long before they tried again; this time, it stuck.


    Morgan was born in July 1986, and she was the darling of John''s eyes. They found happiness again but couldn''t stay settled, moving to Salt Lake City for a year, but they didn''t like it. Tom was picking fights in school and caught stealing electronics. They tried Washington again, but Tom was becoming more and more unruly. Their marriage became strained. Patsy hoped a son might fix it.


    And on August 8, 1988, I was born, but something was wrong. The umbilical cord was wrapped around my throat, and my heart had stopped. The doctors tore into Patsy to retrieve me in time to zap me back to life; meanwhile, Patsy was terrified and in a lot of pain. Due to the circumstances, my birth was a cause for mixed emotions. Patsy was bedridden for months, so they moved again. This time to Oklahoma to live with John''s mom.


    Their marriage worsened. When Jude was born in 1991, John didn''t believe he was the father. They divorced later that year. Patsy took the 3 kids to live with Gramma in Washington. John stayed in Oklahoma. I was three when this went down. Consequently, I don''t know my dad very well.


    A few times, Morgan and I would fly to live with John in Oklahoma, but Jude stayed with Patsy. Then visits became fewer and fewer until they stopped entirely. I haven''t heard from my dad in several years.


    It was Morgan who raised me. She taught me how to ride a bike. She convinced me to join the JROTC, Drill Team, and the Rifle Squad. We were always together. She looked out for me, and I did whatever she told me to do. Gramma called us Irish twins.


    "Tell you the truth, my early childhood wasn''t so bad. I mean, we were always moving. I went to a new school at least every other year. Patsy was stoned all day, every day, but we never starved. We didn''t always eat well, but we never starved," I finished.


    Dani took a moment to absorb my story and be sure I was finished telling it.


    She chuckled. "I can see why you want to be a writer. Tell me about the fantasy story you mentioned earlier. You said it was set in Eden. Is God a character?"


    Dani was probably only feigning interest because that''s her job, but I was happy to talk about it anyway.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.


    "Not yet," I answered. "In my story, God is the consciousness of the universe. In the beginning, some stars randomly aligned in complex cluster formations, like cosmic ganglia, and that''s how the universe became cognizant. Sometime after the Big Bang, God set about discovering Itself and testing its abilities. The first things God made were Heaven and the angels. They were perfect and subservient but soon became tedious, so next, God made Eden. Molding Adam and Lilith from clay, God gave them free will because God was curious. It was an experiment; to see how life reacts to freedom. Could free will be trusted?


    "The first test was simple: would they eat a thing God told them not to eat? That went well. Neither Adam nor Lilith ate the forbidden fruit. But Lilith surprised God by refusing to continue the experiment. She wouldn''t have Adam''s kids. That was humanity''s first defiance, so God exiled Lilith to the moon.


    "God made Eve, and the experiment continued. When Adam and Eve failed the test, God cursed them with Original Sin but stuck around for a few centuries to watch the drama unfold, eventually leaving to explore the limits of the universe. Since the universe is limitless, God will spend eternity discovering Itself.


    "God isn''t omnipotent or omnipresent. God''s mind wanders the universe. God can be anywhere with a thought but can''t be in all places at once, any more than we can think of everything at the same time. When God isn''t thinking about Eden or Heaven or Nod, God isn''t there. Also, God can''t stop or reverse the flow of time. God is the universe; therefore, God operates along natural laws. God can''t leave the universe, and the universe is space-time. God can bend and travel space-time but can''t escape; any more than you could escape your spine. There are infinite universes, but God is this universe."


    "That''s interesting. Send me anything you''re working on if you like," Dani said. "But I''m afraid we''re out of time today." I saw that she was right.


    "Okay. Thanks for listening to me ramble on for an hour," I said.


    "No, thank you. You shared your world with me. That''s why I do this. It was a privilege. Let''s meet again once a week for as long as you''re in the program."


    I shook her hand and committed to meeting every week. When I left her office, I felt lighter, as if talking to someone had lifted a real weight off. I was in such a good mood I decided it was time to go out and meet someone.


    One of the things I came to understand about my predicament was if I put on a button-down shirt and slacks, I could blend in social circles that weren''t mine. I was young, white, and clean-shaven. No one expected me to be homeless or to have a job in the Tenderloin cashing SSI checks.


    Whenever I needed a haircut, I went online for a hookup and searched for someone with clippers. Half my paychecks went into maintaining the illusion that I wasn''t destitute, buying new clothes and shoes. I felt like a super spy, infiltrating upper-middle-class houses, pretending I was one of them, mimicking their vocal patterns and vocabulary, and adopting their habits and behaviors.


    But I wasn''t as good an actor as I thought I was. People could perceive something off about me: my furtive omissions, evasive answers to common questions, the worn edges of my clothes, the way I didn''t recoil when a dirty homeless person came into my personal space asking for money, that I often gave what change I had. No doubt, several oddities gave me away. I became an object of speculation and mystery, and I felt all the more powerful for it, but it left me more lonely than I''d ever been. No one knew how to relate to me, and I didn''t know how to let them. I had torn down the walls I''d built to hide my sexuality and insecurities, only to build fresh new ones.


    Maybe that''s why I found myself attracted to outcasts, Deaf people, Poz guys, trans folks, and POC. I figured they must have felt as alien and removed from mainstream society as I felt, or more, and despite my self-imposed isolation, I desperately wanted a place to belong, to have a family.


    So it shouldn''t be surprising that I found August so attractive. He was positive, Portuguese and Puerto Rican, and the same age as me. We met up for pizza, and he was my first real friend. He had a stoic charm, great posture, head high, shoulders back, and a proud, protective nature. He trained his voice to be deeper than it would casually be. The habit was so ingrained he seldom spoke above a low baritone, except when drunk. He demanded that he pay for dinner, and I didn''t argue because every little bit helped.


    We talked about his ex, Travis, and August told me, toxic people will try to control you. When they can''t control you, they try to control the narrative about you by spreading lies and rumors. But if you''re consistent and don''t play their game, their narrative fails because others will see the truth. If someone can''t or won''t see the truth, they probably aren''t worth your time, anyway.


    After our date, he invited me to go home with him. I said yes.


    August was roommates with a middle-aged gay named Nathan. Nathan was a funny, irascible curmudgeon who owned a technical consulting firm; so their house was lavish, futuristic, and well-maintained by Latin house cleaners. Nathan had been in the scene for over two decades and knew Travis. When Travis and August broke up, August got Nathan in the divorce.


    Nathan was a bitter queen who pushed people away. August was a simple, stoic nihilist, so they got along great, apart from the shouting matches Nathan usually instigated. He showed his affection by picking fights and criticizing. He was a complex, insightful, insecure man, and I found him fascinating.


    As I mentioned, August and I didn''t have all that much in common. It wasn''t long before we transitioned from lovers to friends with the occasional benefit. Though we fought several times over the years, he became one of my most cherished friends. We rarely saw eye-to-eye on anything, but we learned to value our differences, and I''ll forever be grateful for his friendship and brotherhood.


    I also got close to Nathan. It wasn''t a sexual relationship, but Nathan had a foot fetish, and I took my shoes off at the door. He always treated me like a person, never like a sex object, so I didn''t care what he fantasized about. He took an interest in me as a friend, and despite his bitterness and penchant for picking fights over insignificant nonsense, he was always gracious and offered sound (usually unsolicited) advice regarding my life''s petty dramas. Eventually, Nathan and I had a falling out. His need for conflict became exhausting and painful, and I moved on with my life, but for a couple years, I spent more time at their home than mine. They were my gay family, and Nathan was the big brother I didn''t know I needed.


    Nathan even helped me commit fraud. At least, I think it was fraud. It was definitely against the rules. I was eager to enroll in college but wasn''t yet a Californian citizen. Out-of-state tuition cost thousands, so Nathan helped me by altering his utility bill to make it look like I''d been living with him since 2006.


    I learned that college, too, had been a victim of harsh austerity measures. Classes had been cut in half. Teachers had been laid off. Nonessential departments were being merged and subsumed by major departments. Every class necessary for my major was capped early, and add-ons were admitted based on seniority. Since it was my first semester in college, thousands of students with seniority were vying for the same classes as me. So I had no realistic chance of getting into the classes I needed. I would have to wait until next year and hope my position in the queue advanced enough, or so I thought.


    When I mentioned my predicament to Nathan, he said it was possible to log onto the college website and alter the text so my registration date looked earlier than it was. I still remember the conversation with Nathan when he brought it up. We were sitting in his living room. "Dragons" by Caravan Palace was playing over the sound system. He said he could hack the site, but then he tried to talk me out of it. As I said before, Nathan liked to argue for the sake of arguing.


    He said, "You realize, by doing this, you''re robbing someone else of the opportunity to take this class this semester. This isn''t like before when you just wanted in the door; that didn''t hurt anyone. This time, you''re taking someone else''s seat. Before I help you do this, tell me, how do you justify it?"


    "Well, this whole system is bogus. It shouldn''t be like this at all. If someone wants to better themselves, it shouldn''t be a mad struggle to climb on top of others. I just want to learn."


    "Now you''re rationalizing. It doesn''t matter whether or not the system ''should'' or ''shouldn''t'' anything. It is. This is the system, and you agreed to it when you enrolled. Now you want to break the rules and push someone else down the ladder, someone more deserving than you."


    "What makes them more deserving? Because they had the good fortune to enroll before the housing market collapsed? That doesn''t make them worthy; it just makes them lucky."


    "You''re still rationalizing. None of that matters. Fact is, if I do this and you get away with it, you''re taking someone else''s spot. What makes that okay?"


    "It''s not okay! It''s messed up, but I don''t want to be homeless anymore. I''m not proud of it, but I''ll do what I have to do to learn. I''m sorry to whomever for taking their spot, but they''ll be with twenty other students who get turned away, and I won''t be one of them. Whoever it is will still be able to enroll in other classes."


    "You don''t know that. You don''t know how desperately they might need this class or what else they have going outside of it. What if you set someone back and they have no backup?"


    "Then I''m sorry for that, too. I don''t want to hurt anyone, and I''m not happy it''s a matter of them or me. All I can say is I want to learn, so I can be a better person and get out of homelessness. I won''t feel guilty about that."


    Since the teachers only required a printout of the webpage with a registration date, I successfully lied my way into Advanced English, Intro to Psychology, Biological Psychology, Beginner Piano, and Musicianship. Once enrolled, I aced every class.


    After my first semester, I stopped forging my registration date and applied for classes with everyone else. I figured with a 4.0 GPA, I would be eligible for more classes than the previous semester, and I got into several classes. I was turned away several times, too. But with every new semester, my GPA stayed high, so my class eligibility increased. I discovered that I loved college. I loved the challenge and intellectual stimulation. I loved making myself think in new and strange ways to adapt to different teachers and teaching styles. I made money tutoring students and loved every minute of it. I loved teaching as much as I loved learning. Had my financial aid not run out, I probably would have stayed in academia.


    I changed majors so many times I lost count. But throughout my college experience, I kept returning to English and Creative Writing classes. Whenever possible, I turned in chapters from my fantasy story, getting help from countless teachers over the years, for which I am forever grateful.

 January 2009 - Humdrum Part 1

    One day, I went on an alternate-reality adventure to find a missing girl.


    As I mentioned earlier, Nathan was smarter than the average bear, lived in San Francisco nearly all his life, and knew quite a few of the city''s secrets.


    Secrets like the Humdrum Institute.


    On a blue, sunny day, Nathan sent me an enigmatic text message to meet him in the lobby of a building in the financial district. I don''t remember which building. Almost all the buildings downtown look the same. Fifty stories of dark glass windows and steel.


    I found Nathan sitting on a couch with August and a young man I''d never met. Despite not being conventionally attractive, Nathan had a way of meeting attractive twinks. He was short, had a belly, and a nasally voice, but he was an intelligent, decent human with a sharp wit. He usually treated people with kindness and respect. That was probably his secret. Sometimes pretty young men found Nathan attractive. Other times, they became friends, and Nathan liked introducing me to his new friends.


    "Hi," I greeted August, Nathan, and the new guy at once. "I''m Sebastian," I said, extending my hand to him.


    He blushed, smiled warmly, and held my hand softly. I felt instantly safe with him.


    "I''m Rufio." He was light brown, with dark hair, my height, and somewhere between cute, sexy, and beautiful.


    "Okay, now that''s over, everyone''s here," Nathan complained, looking at me because I was five minutes late. "Let''s get going. To the elevators."


    We stepped off onto the 18th floor. A woman sat behind a desk in a dark corner of the building. Nathan stepped forward as the leader of our expedition and asked her for the key to the Humdrum Institute. She reached into her desk, pulled out a small wooden map attached to a keychain, and handed it to us without a word. We huddled for a moment to decipher the map and, when we reached agreement, set out to find the X.


    X turned out to be a room designed like a 1960s business office. Curious timepieces and plants filled the shelves. As soon as the door shut behind us, the television turned on, first to static, then to flickering images of esoterica. Meanwhile, a velvety smooth disembodied voice filled the room.


    "Welcome to the Humdrum Institute. Simply by coming here, you have taken your first steps on your journey to discover the truth. The truth is: all around us, a secret war is being waged between the Cult of Nonchalance and myself and my colleagues at the Humdrum Institute. I would explain more, but these secrets are too dangerous to tell here like this. Besides, you wouldn''t believe me. You''ll have to see for yourself to believe.


    "To aid you on your journey, please open the top drawer of the curio encasing the crystal dragon; there, you will find several maps and sheets for information. Please fill out the forms. Then, each of you, take a map and return the key to Aubrey at the desk. Don''t speak to her or anyone else until you leave the building.


    "The guards on the ground floor lobby are Nonchalant spies. Surely they will have alerted the others of your presence and will try to follow you. Shake them off. Don''t use the elevator. Instead, leave through the fire escape. I will shut off the alarm for the next 5 minutes. Once you''re outside in the alley, consult the maps. The Nonchalant are on their way to capture you! Hurry now! Go!"


    We hurried silently out, returned the key to Aubrey while enacting Mission Impossible poses, and stepped out onto the 18th-floor fire escape. Rufio was scared of heights, which I found adorable in that moment, so I distracted him with questions.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators!


    "Where are you from?" I asked him.


    "A suburb of Los Angeles. My family emigrated from Mexico, so I would be born in the US," he said.


    "Do you speak Spanish?" August asked, and Rufio shook his head.


    "No, my parents didn''t speak Spanish at home. They said I wouldn''t need it. Sometimes my abuelos spoke Spanish, but they wanted me to grow up all-American, so they never spoke Spanish to me."


    "That''s sad," I said. "I wish I grew up bilingual." Rufio and I held eyes briefly, and there was a connection. By the time we reached the ground, Rufio and I were inseparable. Together.


    For hours, we journeyed through the financial district and into Chinatown, gathering and deciphering clues to yield a jumbled warning: ''Find Eve. Beware the Nonchalant! They have infiltrated every level of government and society, and they will stop at nothing to keep secret the entrance and nature of Elsewhere.''


    "That''s ominous," August concluded as he carved his initials into a nearby tree. "Now that we know they exist, they''re out to get us, is that it? Way to screw us over, Humdrum. Telling us put us in danger!"


    Nathan stayed quiet through most of the day''s exploits. He''d been this far before, but the entire story took several days, and he''d never gone past the first chapter. Rather than give the answers away, he let us decipher the clues ourselves.


    Since Nathan was staying silent, August and I tussled over team leader. He wanted to be in charge, but I figured out most of the clues first, so I led most of the day. "It says the next clues can be seen through that telescope," I deciphered from a jumble of letters and pointed at a balcony in a building across the park from us. We walked up to it, and I waved to Rufio to look first, then August, then me. The telescope was locked in position and focused on a church several miles away at the top of Dolores Park. It was a timeworn but majestic church, distinguishable even at a distance by its golden dome that shone like a sun in the daylight.


    It took several minutes to travel to Dolores Park, so I got to know Rufio better. He was a student at SF State, majoring in Philosophy. He was at once thoughtful and silly, handsome, but also anxious and unsure of himself.


    With the men before Rufio, I was the quiet, passive one, but Rufio was even more shy and passive than I, so when he was around, I took charge. He said he felt safe with me, and that made me brave for him. But I''m getting ahead of myself.


    We got to the church around 4 pm and looked for the next clue. After several minutes without success, Nathan led us around the back of the building to a nondescript door. It looked like the entrance to a small shed, perhaps tools or garden equipment. A padlock with a six-number combination blocked our path.


    "The missing girl, when did she go missing?" Rufio asked. I consulted the key I picked up at the Institute. It gave a short bio of a girl named Eve, who went missing several years ago, and seemed to be the story''s MacGuffin. But Nathan saved me the trouble and said it was instead Eve''s birthday, 07-19-86.


    With the right combination, the door opened to stairs leading down beneath the church. The lights were low. Spiders lived in the several wide cracks in the concrete foundation. I tried not to let my fear shake me, but Rufio was thoroughly spooked. August laughed at us both and went first down the dark stone stairway. I grabbed Rufio''s hand and followed behind August. Nathan took the rear and closed the door behind us.


    The stairs led to a circular stone room, clearly meant as a worship space, with little cushions to kneel on, strange banners on every wall, and a tiny sunroof that cast a single beam of light.


    "This is as far as I''ve gotten," Nathan confessed. "On the altar, you''ll find the last clue."


    On the altar was a large ornate clock, stuck at 8:00. Next to the clock was a sign that said, ''Come to Sunday Morning Service!''


    "Shit," August said. "You''re telling me we gotta be up and here by eight in the morning?! Ugh."


    "That''s the end of chapter one," Nathan said. "I don''t know what happens here, and I haven''t convinced anyone else to meet me for chapter two."


    "I''ll do it," I said without hesitation. "This was the most fun I''ve had... maybe ever." I was determined to see where the story led. And what a unique first date! Rufio said he would come back, too. August glared at us with envy and jealousy, standing so close to each other. He would spend several weeks irritated with me. I ignored him, and Rufio became my first boyfriend.

 February 2009 - Travis

    I''ve always been a solitary person. When I was much younger, I would take a book to the farthest corner of the schoolyard so no one would talk to me.


    I used to be lonely. I grew out of it. But until then, I was a desperate sadboi, pathetic and manipulative.


    See, I''m good at understanding people. Call it empathy or simply being observant. I can look at a person and usually know what they want and how they think. So naturally, this makes my life somewhat paradoxical. I don''t like people, yet I love them; I''m fascinated by them, and as much as I hate being around them, I''m bored and sometimes sad when they''re not around.


    Anyway, all these qualities, combined with my situation and environment, molded me into a very manipulative version of myself. I understood people, what they wanted, how they thought, and how to bring them to my way of thinking. And, being the desperate sadboi I was, I didn''t always use my powers for good. Often, I would manipulate a person or situation just to see if I could. Other times, I lied because I thought it would make things easier and I could get away with it.


    For example, my relationship with Rufio. I cheated on him and lied about it. And I''m sorry. Not that my apology or guilt changes anything. But I am sorry. I wasn''t a very good person at that time in my life. I didn''t care about other people. I had great affection for Rufio and all the other men I ''loved'' at the time. I said the words ''I love you,'' and I meant it, but in hindsight, I was unable to love anyone. I was still thinking in survival mode. Every relationship I made was calculated. I wanted someone who could ''fix'' me or ''save'' me, but ultimately I wanted someone to fill the hole I felt in myself. I had to learn to love myself, accept my flaws and weaknesses, and see others, not in terms of how they might benefit me, but how I might benefit them, or simply appreciate the things that make them unique.


    But I wasn''t ready to think like that.


    A few weeks after the Humdrum adventure, August''s ex, Travis messaged me on Facebook. He asked how I was doing, and wrote that his friend Otis had just died due to a rejected heart transplant, and he was heartbroken. I expressed sympathy, and then he invited me over.


    My first instinct was apprehension. August was my friend. I''d met Travis at social gatherings, but I didn''t know him well, and August didn''t speak highly of him. But Travis was wealthy and influential in the Castro scene, and I wanted to be popular, so I reluctantly agreed and walked the half mile to his house.


    I knocked, and Travis finally opened the door after some difficulty, looking flushed. He wore a big smile and welcomed me inside. I completely forgot to be on guard. How could he be dangerous? He was so pitiable. Something about him felt like a fa?ade, and it threw me off. I was a great liar. Travis was not. It made me wary but also fascinated, the way snakes and spiders fascinate me. I was expecting something a little more somber, but whatever.


    "Do you want a drink?" he asked.


    "Uh, sure. I don''t drink much, so a small one, please."


    "Follow me," he said playfully and sauntered to the kitchen. While mixing drinks, he boasted of his new kitchen renovations: black marble countertop, stainless steel appliances, voice control systems, and whatnot.


    I thought it was a tasteless demonstration of almost-wealth and wondered why he hadn''t mentioned Otis, his dead friend. Wasn''t that why I came here, to console him? He rambled on about his home decorations as he handed me a drink, and we moved to the living room. I sipped my drink and coughed a little. Hard alcohol was new to me and exciting.


    He crossed his legs on his couch, wobbling his head confidently.


    "My friends and I are what you might call the ''A-Gays,''" he began. "Dozens of boys try to get in our social circle; we''re very popular."


    "That''s kind of pretentious. What makes you so special?"


    "We''re rich, in our thirties, and we know everybody worth knowing. If you wanted, I could get you a VIP pass into Badlands; the owner and I are close friends."


    "Thanks, but bars aren''t really my thing."


    "Okay, okay¡­ So I saw on Facebook that you''re friends with August," and as he said this, he looked sideways, like he was being sly.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.


    "Yeah, he''s one of the first people I met in San Francisco. I''ve heard you two have issues, but he''s my friend, and I don''t want to get put in the middle of your thing. I hope you understand. We can be friends, but I''d rather we not talk about him."


    "That''s fine. I just think you should know he''s not a good person. Right now, he''s being sued for giving my friend HIV; and he cheated on me when he did it."


    "He told me you two had an open relationship."


    "Well, yeah."


    "Then was it cheating? Your friend was having unsafe sex with August. It can be assumed he was having unsafe sex with other people too. There''s no way of knowing who gave it to whom; even if there were, would it make a difference? It happened. And no one forced your grown friend into raw-dogging a beautiful twink."


    "I know August. He would hide it. It''s something he would do. I''m only telling you to warn you. You need to be careful."


    "I am careful. August and I use condoms. He''s on meds, and he''s shown me his medical reports. He''s undetectable, which means he''s untransmittable. I''m safe. Besides, I trust him. He would never endanger me. You seem pretty bitter he broke up with you."


    "You''re goddamn right, I''m bitter! He gave me HIV and cut my life in half!" Then he went into another diatribe about his health, which he thought was fascinating, but I didn''t.


    I interrupted, "Even if August was patient zero, he''s 19, you''re 35, and you encouraged him to sleep with your friends. Sex is a numbers game. The more people you sleep with, the likelier the chance of catching something."


    He blushed and smiled wistfully. "Well, fine, that''s true. I used to drive August to his trick''s house." Again, he looked sideways at me. His face was pink. "I like when the boys I''m dating sleep with other people; it''s like saying, ''Look what I have, and you can just borrow it.'' I''m looking for a fuck-buddy, Sebastian. Not a boyfriend, but someone I can fool around with and buy things for. I can be very generous."


    Yikes. Where did my drink go?


    "Um¡­ you just referred to your ex-boyfriend as an ''it.'' He''s also my good friend, and we sleep together. I''m sorry, but I''m not interested in having a sexual relationship with you. We can be friends, though."


    "That''s cool. You finished your drink! Do you want another one?"


    "Sure."


    Again, we returned to the kitchen, and he retold the fascinating story of its renovation. I silently debated whether to stay or go home. Deciding to push my luck, I changed the subject. "Last week I was in a car accident! My boyfriend, Rufio''s car was totaled."


    "I was in a car accident once, but we won''t talk about that! Ha ha."


    "It sounds interesting."


    "No, no. I thought about what you said earlier, and it''s fine. After August, I made a resolution not to date boys younger than 24 anymore. They''re just immature, and they''re kinda stupid ¨C no offense. It''s nothing personal, but I think around 24, something happens to boys'' brains, and they become smarter, more capable of maintaining a healthy relationship."


    I was 20. Trying not to interpret that as the insult it strongly resembled, I said, "I''ve met plenty of young guys in healthy relationships. You''re generalizing a lot of people. Makes me think you''re projecting yourself onto others."


    He blinked a few times, unable to think up a good retort; surprised, annoyed, and impressed that I beat him, his eyes twinkled. My ego flared. He annoyed me, but I liked that he thought I was impressive. I''d stay if only because he thought I was remarkable. That, and he was offering free vodka. This is fun, I thought, smug and self-righteous. I asked for another drink. Meanwhile, the room was beginning to sway, and, I imagine, so was I.


    "I want to show you something," he said to me. "Follow me upstairs to my room."


    I won''t lie. I knew what he was about, but full of myself and vodka, I thought I could out-maneuver him. I was wrong. The thing he wanted to show me was his collection of nudes he''d downloaded off people''s online dating profiles. My initial reaction of disgust was soon overshadowed by the thought, "Wow, these are hot!" And being drunk and looking at nudes put me in a desirable position for a predatory older gay.


    The morning after, I woke up with a furious hangover, furious at myself. Travis woke up as I tried to leave quietly.


    "So I was thinking we could go shopping," he informed me.


    I pause for a moment, knowing I would regret this:


    "Alright. Let''s go."


    I know. I wish I had scruples, too, but I like nice things and couldn''t afford them. Plus, this asshole took advantage of me. I wanted something out of it. Anyway, rationalization aside, we went shopping. Somehow he spent 500 dollars on underwear, shoes, swimming trunks, a delicious meal, and a sex toy, making me promise he could use it on me later. I lied and said yes. Travis thought he was driving us to his house, but first, I dropped him off. He threw a tantrum, insulted me, and begged me not to go. The walk home felt good. Revenge is fun, I thought, until Rufio called, crying and brokenhearted.


    Travis had called him.


    Between heaving sobs, Rufio asked me if I cheated on him with August, if I had HIV, and if I infected him. I ran to him and told him everything. I did cheat on him with August. I used a condom, but that didn''t matter. He asked that I give him space to focus on his studies.


    Not one to be outdone, I posted on Travis'' Facebook wall that he raped me. While many disagree, I maintain that was a truthful statement. I had told Travis I was not interested. Then he plied me, an inexperienced adolescent, with alcohol and manipulated me until I relented from the pressure. That is not enthusiastic consent.


    Travis'' response was predictable: he told anyone who''d listen I was a lying slut and a meth addict. That''s how I made my reputation in San Francisco. For months and years later, strangers meeting me would ask if they were true, all those awful things they''d heard about me.

 March 2009 - Community Convention

    "Rufio still isn''t speaking to me. I fucked everything up, and I don''t know why I did it," I told Dani.


    Most youths in CYH had to see their caseworker every week, but I had a job and maintained a 4.0 GPA, so I convinced Dani to see me only once a month because I thought I didn''t need help. But in retrospect, I should have asked for extra time because I needed all the help I could get.


    "Sometimes we ruin things for ourselves because we don''t think we deserve them," she pondered.


    "I dunno. To be honest, sometimes I''ll catch myself and think, ''wow, that''s arrogant.''"


    Dani shrugged. "Arrogance and insecurity are like two sides of the same coin. Sometimes, people pretend to be confident to hide how scared and unsure they are."


    "That doesn''t make sense. How can someone be arrogant and insecure at the same time?"


    Dani laughed and said, "It takes a lot of work, let me tell you, but if you can convince yourself, you can convince anyone."


    I thought about it for a moment. "You''re saying I''ve convinced myself I''m arrogant?"


    "I don''t mean to say anything. But. If you had convinced yourself of something, that wouldn''t be unusual. Most people lie to themselves. Myself included. Once you''ve lied to yourself, lying to someone else is easy. Being honest with yourself, that''s rare, because it''s hard. Being honest with yourself demands work and pain. It''s not easy coming to terms with yourself. Your failings. It hurts. Most people don''t have the constitution for it."


    I didn''t know how to respond. Dani was like that. She''d say something abstract, and I''d just sit there thinking about it for a few seconds.


    "Okay. To be clear, you''re saying I fucked up my relationship with Rufio because I think I don''t deserve him, and I''ve convinced myself that I''m arrogant to hide my insecurities... from myself?"


    Dani put her hands up in the air in surrender. "I have no idea. I''m not in your head, and I never met Rufio. I''m just listening to your story. Anything I say is a knee-jerk response to what you say, but I won''t pretend I''m impartial. I''m still human. If I''m projecting my own nonsense, or maybe someone else''s, disregard me. Honestly, I''m just some guy. Who cares what I think? I don''t have God''s Truth. If something I say doesn''t feel true to you, ignore it, please."


    Again, Dani had me stumped. Most people didn''t act like her, and it took me a second to process that kind of casual humility, but I was preoccupied by something else entirely.


    "You said you''re ''some guy.'' Have I been gendering you wrong?''" I asked wrongly.


    Dani just smiled. "No, you haven''t been misgendering me. I don''t care whether people call me a man or a woman."


    As she mentioned it, I realized we never discussed gender or how she preferred to be referred. I felt ashamed and confused and kind of confused about being ashamed and confused. "I never asked you about your pronoun preferences. Is that right? I don''t even know how to ask about it. I''m sorry. I didn''t mean to be rude, but it also seemed like none of my business."


    She shrugged. "To tell you the truth, I often don''t know what the rules are, either. It seems like new norms and codes of conduct are introduced and enforced so rapidly, it''s hard to keep up, even for me. I don''t always align with, I guess you could call it, ''liberal orthodoxy.'' But it is polite in liberal circles to ask for pronouns when meeting a person. You never asked, but you never made me feel weird or freakish, either. You treat me like anyone else. I shouldn''t say this, but many of my clients were awkward about it. If anything, I''d say thank you."


    Yet again, she stumped me. I thought for a second about it. "I''m sorry people suck. But I''m a person. And since I already broke the seal on this conversation, can I ask you about gender?"


    "Of course," she put down her notes and pen and folded her hands in her lap. "And don''t worry about offending me. I won''t be offended. If you say or ask something offensive, I''ll explain why it might be offensive, but like I said before, this is a safe space for you to figure things out, and I''m here to help."


    It was wonderful how safe Dani made me feel. Over the years, during moments with others, I noticed myself emulating her, copying her gestures and vocal intonations.


    "Okay," I said, having organized my thoughts a little. "A couple months back in Lark Inn, I met a trans couple. A boy and a girl, going this way," I pointed like the Scarecrow in both directions, "And I guess... I guess I don''t understand."


    Dani laughed and sighed and said, "Yeah, that makes sense. You didn''t actually ask a question, so I''ll say what comes to mind, and maybe a dialogue will come from that, yeah? Alright. Uh. I guess... the first thing to understand is... gender and sex are not the same thing. Sex is about chromosomes and hormones; it''s biological stuff. Gender is about how cultures interpret that biological stuff and where one falls within that interpretation. And it''s important to remember our culture is not universal. Other cultures differ widely on how they interpret and organize that biological stuff."


    I knit my brows and nod, following along so far. Dani continued, "But the simple thing about sex and gender is they aren''t binary. You know what a binary is?"


    I shake my head.


    "It''s like, either-or. Black or white, with no shades of grey, but almost everything exists in some shade of grey.


    "Myself, for example. My body produces more testosterone than is ''normal'' (she said while making air quote fingers) for a woman. Doctors told me they could perform a dangerous, invasive surgery to ''fix'' (again) me, but this is who I am," she said while spreading her arms and posturing. "I like me, and I don''t need fixing. Now some people see me, and they think I''m a man. That''s fine. I can''t go around correcting everyone on the street, can I? Does it matter? Not to me, anyway. Sometimes, people think I''m a man, and when I drop my voice low and act commanding (she said this while acting it out), I even enjoy some male privilege. I kind of exist within a strange intersection of privilege and oppression.


    "But I''m kind of trans-adjacent, so probably not the best person to help you understand trans people. I don''t experience body dysmorphia. Other people have hang-ups with my body, not me."


    Dani gave me a few moments of silence because I needed the extra time to think about it.


    "So you''re a woman?" I asked.


    "I mean, I guess? Most of the time, anyway. I think of myself as a woman, but sometimes I (air quotes) ''act like a man.'' Sometimes people think I''m a man. And if it swims like a duck and quacks like a duck..."


    "So your gender changes?"


    "I guess? I''m always gonna be me, whether other people know it or not. Whether I know it or not! But how society views me can change at any moment depending on the context. Likewise, how I see myself can change, and I can alter the context."


    This was too much, and I was lost. I shook my head. "But what about Faerie? She''s with this transguy, Alex. Does that makes them straight or gay or what?"This narrative has been purloined without the author''s approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Dani laughed, "Oh, okay. Uhh, I guess the important question is, does it matter?"


    "Not really, no. But I want to understand, and I don''t know how."


    Again, Dani laughed and sighed. "Well, I suggest you ask them... but since you''re asking me... attraction and identity aren''t the same thing. Who you are and what you want are different things, right? As for whether that makes them ''gay'' or ''straight,'' those are just words. Words that imply a dichotomy. A binary. Either-Or. Either gay or straight, as opposed to a complex human person, with unique tastes and preferences, right?"


    After a moment of silence, Dani jumped back in, "And also, I think you don''t necessarily need to understand. I don''t mean to be dismissive. Full disclosure, I don''t totally get it, either, and that''s okay. See, I like my body. I don''t understand what it''s like to live in the wrong body, but I don''t need to understand. All I need to do is treat Faerie like I would anyone else."


    "I wanna be respectful. I don''t mean to pry. That''s the opposite of what I want. It''s just I wanna understand so I can be better. I''m afraid I''ll say something stupid or insensitive and fuck everything up."


    Dani nodded. "Yeah, that''s real." She sighed. "I can''t answer why Faerie is transitioning. Only she can do that. And I don''t think she can answer why anyone else is transitioning. In my experience, it''s a unique, personal journey.


    "But I can say your fears are out of proportion. I don''t mean to dismiss them outright. Some people are bastard-filled bastards, and trans people are people, too. So I won''t lie and say, ''no trans person will be upset if you accidentally use the wrong words,'' but for the most part, people can recognize intention. Like our conversation now. You''ve been very respectful. You even asked permission before talking about it. Who does that? Just be with Faerie the way you are around me. You''ll be fine. And if you say something she doesn''t like, let her correct you. Listen to her. She might even be grateful to share her truth with you."


    We sat in silence for a while again until Dani finally broke it.


    "What about you? What happened last month? I know you went on the Humdrum adventure. That''s when you met Rufio. Did you go back and finish it?"


    "No. The next chapter is on the first Sunday of every month. Five days ago. Rufio still won''t talk to me, and I was depressed, so I bailed. Nathan was super disappointed. This is the second time his party bailed before chapter two."


    Dani had a sly look in her eyes. "Why don''t you invite Faerie and Alex to the next chapter? You can run the first chapter with them again before the next first Sunday."


    "Yeah. That''s a good idea. I''ll ask them at the next Community Convention."


    The Community Conventions were mandatory monthly gatherings of all the youths and their caseworkers. Being in Castro Youth Housing meant jumping through hoops and regular check-ins. I don''t mean to seem ungrateful. Particularly with the benefit of hindsight, I am grateful for those hoops and rules. They gave my life structure. I didn''t realize at the time how much I appreciated that sense of regularity.


    Also, Castro Youth Housing provided pizza with vegan alternatives, so the meetings were always well attended, and the attendants were well satisfied.


    "Yoshimi Battles the Pink RobotsPt. 1" by the Flaming Lips was playing on a nearby portable stereo. I saw Faerie and Alex sitting together alone, and I asked to sit next to them.


    "Oh yeah, you''re that geek who thinks Ironman would win against Batman in a cage match," Faerie taunted.


    "In a sudden death match, no doubt. But Bruce Wayne would beat Tony Stark if he had time to prepare a strategy and study Ironman''s weaknesses," I shot back and took a seat.


    Faerie just rolled her eyes, and I was already off to a bad start.


    Alex was friendlier this time. "Hey, Bastian. Don''t mind her. She''s in a mood."


    Faerie immediately stood up and walked away from Alex and me without another word. Alex watched her leave but didn''t react.


    "What''s a matter with her?" I asked.


    "None of your business," Alex said calmly. That shut down conversation for several minutes. I ate in silence until Deon, a large young Black man, sat down next to me. We lived on the same floor and met sitting in the hallway, each of us jumping on the wifi of the cafe downstairs. We would sit for hours together, surfing the internet, playing games, and talking about stuff.


    "Mmm!" Deon boisterously exclaimed. "You know I love pizza, but I LOVE free pizza. Can you taste the freedom? Here, smell it. Delicious, delicious freedom. I look forward to this every month. Y''all have no idea. I get to hang out with all my people. There''s food, games, and people. Oh my God, I love people."


    Alex scowled. I laughed with Deon and said, "Not me. I''d rather be home. People are the worst. Pizza is great, though."


    "I know! People suck, and I need them! I''m cursed!" Deon laughed at himself. "Y''all have no idea. I sit in my apartment alone, and it''s like I''m a plant without sunlight. But people are awful!"


    "At least they''re entertaining," I said. "And every once in a great while, people are the best." I smiled and ate my pizza, and bumped my shoulder into Deon''s shoulder. A grim and comforting silence followed. Alex looked at our warm and easy candor with piqued interest. The chatter of twenty other street urchins distributing Apples to Apples cards rang like ambient music in the background. Faerie returned to sit beside Alex.


    "Apples to Apples. For the fifth month in a row," she said dryly.


    "We gotta get these folks some new party games," Alex said to her.


    "Chile, don''t you dare speak ill of Apples to Apples! I love this game," Deon was animated and delighted to see Faerie. She lit up with his infectious enthusiasm and leaned in to rejoin.


    "Apples can be fun, but we''ve gone through the deck several times. There are lots of fun games out there. I can prove it. Come with Alex and me to Totally Awesome. It''s a board game store in West Portal. On Thursdays, they let you open any board game and play it. It''s totally awesome! Alex and I go every week. You can come, too, Ironman," she said mockingly. I jumped in my seat.


    "Thanks! Actually, I wanted to invite you all on an adventure. Have any of you heard of the Humdrum Institute?" I said in a low voice, so only the four of us could hear.


    "Uh, I have not," Alex said with extreme skepticism.


    "Nope," said Faerie.


    "Me neither," said Deon.


    "It sounds boring," Alex concluded.


    "Yes, it does," I said. "But I promise it''s fun. It''s like a scavenger hunt through the city. There are clues all over. You''d be amazed! And it''s free!"


    "Okay, can we just pause for a second," Deon interrupted. "Because I want to acknowledge this is the greatest conversation I''ve ever been in, and I want to thank you all for including me in it."


    "Thanks, Deon," Alex responded. Faerie and I agreed. Deon jumped back into the conversation.


    "But what about this scavenger hunt? You have my undivided attention." Deon turned his chair to face me better. Alex and Faerie looked at me too, and I laughed and blushed.


    "Okay. I''ve only gone through the first chapter, but I''ll go again, and I''ll only help if you all ask for help. The adventure begins in a generic-looking skyscraper in the Financial District. You get a map there and follow its directions."


    "That sounds like a lot of fun," Faerie observed.


    "It is! I''m not kidding."


    "When is it?" Alex asked.


    "During normal business hours, usually. We can go after the conference, even."


    "And it''s free?" Deon repeated.


    "Yes. At least the first chapter was free. I can''t say if the entire game will be."


    "I bet the last chapter costs money," Alex said. Faerie agreed. "Probably, but we can walk away then. It sounds fun. C''mon, let''s go," she said to him, and Alex relented.


    Deon cheered loudly. I cheered silently. We all finished eating and then ghosted to the Humdrum Institute.


    It was only a mile from the LGBT Center to the Financial District, but San Francisco was riddled with steep hills. Deon demanded frequent stops to collect his breath and wail and threaten to collapse and die, but we made it to the skyscraper that could have been any skyscraper by midday.


    The woman at the desk on the 18th floor was different, but her name tag read Aubrey. Like Nathan did for me and my group, I stayed back and let Alex, Faerie, and Deon decipher the key. Alex took the lead, and we found the 1960s business-style room without incident. The TV clicked on, and the disembodied voice repeated its surreal call to arms.


    I ignored the voice, having heard it before, and examined the room''s contents more closely. Bookshelves were lined with encyclopedias of drugs and metaphysics, books on alien abductions, sightings, crop circles, and UFOs. Other topics included mysticism, spell books, catalogs of fantasy creatures, and studies on parallel dimensions. The books were secured on each shelf to prevent theft. All the furniture was bolted down. The glass cabinets encased an ornate opium pipe, a picture of Timothy Leary, and objects with symbols holy to Eastern religions.


    By the end of the recording, all three of them were wide-eyed with excitement. Deon couldn''t contain himself and practically squealed as we returned the key to "Aubrey."


    Faerie was also jubilant playing the game. She looked beautiful and happy in the sun, her turquoise hair blowing in the wind as we climbed down the fire escape.


    Alex led the team expertly. He read the clues aloud and gave everyone time to respond. The three of them together were whip-sharp and deciphered every clue without my help.


    For my part, I tried to take Dani''s advice and treated Alex and Faerie like anyone else. I didn''t mention their genders or ask my questions. I wouldn''t force the issue. If it comes up naturally in conversation, I thought.


    It didn''t. Instead, we talked about almost everything else. Our crappy housing, superheroes, Chinatown architecture, pork buns, anime, the zodiac, the zodiac killer, and of course, our present adventure: a mystery revolving around a missing girl named Eve, and vague mentions of a fantastic place called Elsewhere.


    By the end of the day, the four of us were fast friends.


    I didn''t get answers to my questions, but I did get a new idea for my book.

 April 2009 - Humdrum - Part 2

    Faerie, Alex, Deon, and I each lived in single studios in the Perramont Hotel. I woke up early and knocked on all their doors, and we walked together to Nathan''s house, which was beautiful and modern, with three stories. They called it Windemere. August rented the ground floor. Nathan lived on the second, and the top level was communal space with an adjoined open-concept kitchen.


    Nathan was cooking waffles from scratch and juicing fruit when we arrived. Naturally social and gregarious, Nathan loved hosting and meeting new people. He was thrilled when I invited three friends to join us for Chapter Two. I also invited Rufio, but he didn''t respond and blocked my number. August and I avoided eye contact.


    We all shared our names and pronouns and devoured breakfast, spending little time on small talk. Service would start soon, and we were eager to hit the road. The church with the golden dome next to Dolores Park was less than a mile away. For the third time, I walked around the building to the shed with a locker combination. 7-19-86. Down the stairs, we went into the creepy circular worship space, except this time, it was filled with people.


    The six of us sat on pews arranged in a semi-circle. The stage and podium were empty, but actors meandered about the crowd, proselytizing about "light" and "Elsewhere." They wore bright, flowing robes with vibrant, colorful stoles.


    At 8am, a gong sounded, and an ancient Asian woman entered the room from behind the podium. The actors went to the stage and began playing a harp, drum, and flutes. The leader carried a violin with her. As she preached from the pulpit, she played her violin, and the band played along. Her introduction was punctuated musically with a haunting, gorgeous tune.


    "Friends, siblings, children, welcome.


    We''ve known one another forever.


    As galaxies gather and spin,


    our gravity brings us together.


    The stars in the skies,


    like stars in your eyes,


    in us all, a light shines within.


    We meet anew. Again.


    Trapped in this body.


    Trapped in this skin.


    Each, part of a whole.


    Like cells in the body,


    Each, cells in one heavenly body.


    Different, indispensable."


    The backup musicians continued playing softly as the cult leader-apparent of the group lowered her violin and began her sermon.


    "Welcome. Thank you for shining with us this beautiful Sunday morning. My name is Reverend Wu. Please, sign in and take a pamphlet. Pass these around. Thank you.


    "No doubt you''ve heard the lies about us, about our faith, about Eve. The Humdrum Institute claims that Eve is missing! They accuse us Nonchalant of kidnapping, treason, perfidy, and worse, but the truth will out!" The choir sang ''the truth will out'' as an echo.


    "Eve is not missing. Oh no. Eve is alive and found. Her light shines in Elsewhere like the dawn, a beacon illuminating the way. Did you know we''re made of light? It''s true. Our bodies make heat through electromagnetic radiation. Heat. Heat is just another kind of light. Infrared light. We cannot see infrared light, but did you know some snakes can? To a snake, we look like angels made of pure light. I wish I could show you, but you''re not ready. You need to see the light for yourself.


    "You are pilgrims on many paths, but today your winding roads merge into one highway. In your pamphlets, you''ll find a map of The City. Eve left this map for us to follow her to Elsewhere. Follow in her steps like pilgrims. Let today''s journey be a journey inside yourself. Let Eve lead you to yourself."


    The musicians played into a crescendo. Smoke billowed in from the ceiling and wall behind Reverend Wu.


    "We will meet again!" Reverend Wu proclaimed. "At the gates of Elsewhere! And beware the Humdrum Institute!"


    Lights flickered as more smoke filled the stage, and after a brief, fantastic firework display, the room went dark. When the lights turned back on, Reverend Wu and the musicians were gone. Several people ran out when the smoke started. We didn''t stay long, either, and hurried upstairs into fresh air.


    We examined the brochure they gave us. It was a local district map of San Francisco. On the top of the first page was a link to a website with a single downloadable audio file. Nathan downloaded the first file and played it for us all to hear.


    It was a recording of a man''s voice. He sounded like a tour guide for cult initiates.


    "Greetings and congratulations. You''ve embarked on a pilgrimage to your truest self. But before you can see the truth in yourself, you must see the world as it truly is. Nothing is what it seems. The world you thought you knew was an illusion. There is another world beneath this world of flesh and stone. Elsewhere. Like two sides of the same coin, our world and Elsewhere are the same, inseparable, but never touching.


    "But imagine for an instant if one drilled a hole through the center of that coin. Would the sides then touch? Could one reach through to the other side?


    "Dolores Park, our lady of sorrows. This land was once a Jewish cemetery. Before that, it held the bodies of the city founders. And earlier still, Native people were born and buried here. History can be bulldozed away, but remnants remain if one knows where to look.


    "This land is teeming with more life than you yet know. Follow the map Reverend Wu gave you. Find for yourself the holes in the surface of your existence."


    The audio file faded into static noise. Nathan put his phone away, and we examined our maps. It sent us north up Church Street and provided historical anecdotes step by step. Three blocks up, the map told us to leave the sidewalk and go to the median. Palm trees decorated the grassy median every few yards. As instructed, we examined the trees closely and found tiny hand prints!


    According to the map, these trees were gates for tiny winged fairies that traveled between our world and Elsewhere. In knotted holes in the trees, we found tiny furniture and stores of tiny foods. We carried on.


    Our maps ended a few blocks west at a secondhand bookstore. We entered as inconspicuously as possible for six queers. Some pilgrims were wandering the shelves, and August noticed a mass of people huddled together in a darkened corner of the shop. We waited for the crowd to leave and then hurried to see what they were examining.


    Among the books of religious studies, a single tome was chained to the wall. I opened it. It seemed like a book of riddles and newspaper clippings. More depictions of Elsewhere, an ephemeral place where spirits dance on the precipice of existence. The book was short and filled with abstract images and obscure occult references. I couldn''t make sense of it. But Nathan recognized one edifice that appeared throughout the book: Coit Tower.


    As we were flipping through the tome''s pages, Faerie noticed a tiny home hidden between the bookshelves. Reaching in, she found the second clue: it was a miniature book, exactly like the one in my hand. And when she opened the book, she found a single link inside.


    Nathan typed the URL into his phone and arrived at another site nearly identical to the previous one, with a single downloadable audio file. We put the books away and exited the bookstore. Once we were all outside and could hear Nathan''s phone, he played the recording. The same voice as before congratulated us on making it this far. The voice told us to go to Coit Tower and directed us to a nearby cable car.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it.


    Coit Tower was several miles away, but the cable car would get us there in 20 minutes. In the meantime, we figured out how this adventure was funded: the entire game was a tourist attraction. San Francisco cable cars were famous. People wrote songs about them. We jumped off near Telegraph Hill, not far from Coit Tower.


    We hiked up and around the rocky terrain and learned about Lillie Hitchcock Coit, the wealthy and eccentric San Franciscan woman who chased fires. We finally found our next clue at the gift shop, of course. Alex found it, a postcard from Elsewhere. Eve was waving blithely on the front image, and on the back, a phone number.


    We called the number, and each of us got an answering machine with the same voice as before. But this time, the voice told us to leave our names and phone numbers.


    Was it a dead end? We scoured the area again to be sure we hadn''t missed a clue and found nothing else.


    After deliberating, we concluded that either the Humdrum Institute or Cult of Nonchalance would email us or call us back. Regardless, our urban hike had lasted several hours, and we were all ready to call it a day. Nathan invited us back to his home for lunch, and no one turned him down. So we jumped back on the cable car in the reverse direction and made our way to Windemere.


    Nathan told us to wash our hands, while he prepared dinner and turned on music. "Perfect Day" by Lou Reed. Then he put a freshly baked loaf of challah on the table. After pouring us each a glass of wine, Nathan brought us bowls of matzah ball soup and said a short prayer in Hebrew. We thanked Nathan for his gracious hospitality, broke the challah, and ate together. The soup was followed by gefilte fish and mushroom gravy latkes. The fish was weird but pretty good. The latkes were fantastic, and we ate plenty. Deon finished first.


    "This is been the best day I''ve had since coming to San Francisco. Thank you... all... for including me. It means a lot to me." Deon''s voice wavered as he said it.


    "Thank you, Deon," Nathan said. "It was a pleasure adventuring with you. How long have you been in San Francisco?"


    "I basically ran away from South Carolina about 8 months ago."


    "Whoa," August exclaimed. "Is it because you''re gay?"


    Deon laughed darkly and said, "That probably played a part, but I think being Black had more to do with it. My family lived in a college town, and some frat boys kept following me. They would throw rocks at me and yell stuff. One time, I woke up in the hospital; my momma gave me a bus ticket and said, ''you gotta get outta here.''"


    All I could say was, "shit."


    "You''re in the same program as Bastian?" Nathan asked.


    "Yeah, we all live in the Castro Housing studios," he said, gesturing to Alex, Faerie, and myself.


    "That''s good... Bastian told me about Larkin Services. They do good work. I''m glad you got help." Nathan turned to Alex and Faerie, sitting close together. "How about you two? Both of you''ve been pretty quiet all day. Where do you come from?"


    Alex answered for them both, "Upstate New York. We came together about a year ago. Sorry if we''ve been rude. It''s just... sorry, but... religious stuff is... well, I guess I''m not used to feeling safe around religious people. And there has been a lot of religious stuff today... sorry."


    I silently shared Alex and Faerie''s discomfort around religious people, icons, and rituals, but they seemed more than uncomfortable. They seemed almost frightened.


    Nathan chuckled warmly. "No offense taken. Honestly, I don''t blame you. Some people have weaponized religion. They worship white patriarchy and money. This might seem off-topic, but... have you heard of the Institute of Sex Research?"


    Blank stares and shrugs. Nathan continued, "I didn''t expect you would. It''s not something widely known... Before the Nazis took over Germany, there was a college that studied sex and gender. They were ahead of their time. Hell, they were ahead of our time. One of the founders was what we now call a trans man. They advocated acceptance and support for people experiencing what they called gender inversion.


    "When Hitler seized power, Nazi youth brigades decided their studies were ''un-German,'' and the school was destroyed. All the books burned in the street. Decades of research-and lives were destroyed. Set us back generations... My parents taught me that as a kid, along with the Torah and Jewish history. I don''t say that to be macabre, but rather that our people died together. Whatever else we are, I consider us brothers and sisters."


    We all fell silent. Direct references to the Holocaust had that effect on most people. Faerie broke the silence.


    "I had no idea. I thought the Holocaust was all about Jews."


    "Hitler''s ''final solution'' was for Jewish people, that''s true, but the Nazis murdered anyone they considered... I guess... ''undesirable.'' Political opponents. Gays and trans folks were brutalized and massacred. Roma, or ''gypsies'', too. In truth, disabled people were the first and most devastated by the Nazi''s genocide. Nazis had enough hate to spread around, and they did."


    "Well, thank God it''s 2009, and Nazis are a thing of the past," August cheered. "Nathan, you''re bumming everybody out. Tell us about your drag persona."


    Nathan lit up and grinned. "Oh, you mean Holly Cost. Yeah, last Halloween, I went in drag and performed "Razzle Dazzle" from Chicago."


    I laughed uproariously with August. Faerie looked appalled. Alex and Deon appeared at once amused, confused, and fearful.


    "That''s hilarious," I said obliviously.


    "No, it''s not! That''s awful. How can you joke about that?" Faerie demanded.


    August and I were stunned. Deon looked down and shrunk in his seat. Alex seemed disappointed and irritated. We looked at Nathan for a response. He appeared off guard but lost none of his affability.


    He shrugged and said, "It''s hard not finding humor in persecution. You can either laugh or run, and I can''t run. I mean, look at me. I am very Jewish. If my options are to laugh or cry, I''d rather laugh. You have to, or life gets too depressing."


    Deon perked up to say, "I feel that."


    Faerie lost some earlier steam but hadn''t cooled completely. She went silent and red in the face. Alex spoke up on her behalf. "Still, it''s weird to pretend you''re a woman just to make crude jokes. The whole concept of drag is sexist. You''re a man wearing a woman''s face like a costume. That''s like blackface or wearing a Native American headdress for Halloween."


    Nathan stopped smiling, but if he was angry, he didn''t show it.


    "Drag is nothing like blackface. Sure, it''s gender performance, but aren''t we all performing gender? How is drag different?"


    Faerie spoke passionately. "I am not performing gender! I am a woman. I am not acting! I don''t go home and stop being a woman."


    Nathan''s composure was deteriorating. "I never suggested otherwise," he said tersely. "Look, I treat you with respect and accept you as you present yourself. Why can''t you extend the same courtesy to drag queens?"


    "Because they get rich and famous pretending to be me, while I get shit on because I don''t dance for tips and wear clown make-up!"


    Faerie''s intensity surprised everyone except Alex, who looked frustrated and sad. August, Deon, and I were too unsure of the subject matter to interject. Nathan, sadly, was getting riled up and defensive. His voice rose an octave and a decibel.


    "No one is pretending to be you. You''re a woman. I''m genderfluid. My identity is just as valid as yours! Look, I''m sorry most people are transphobic, but not everything is about you!"


    Faerie stood up with righteous fury, her chair sliding across the floor. "I should know better than try to be friends with a bunch of white gays. I''ll see myself out."


    "Cough," said Deon.


    "Uhh..." August chimed in.


    "Before dessert?" Nathan asked.


    I stayed quiet but felt insulted. Faerie was already walking downstairs. Alex went after her but stopped. He turned to face the rest of us, looking conflicted and sad. His mouth opened and shut, then he turned and followed Faerie downstairs.


    Nathan sighed in remorse. "Shit, uh... fuck it, let''s uh... have dessert. Anybody want dessert?"


    "I''ll stay for dessert," said Deon, who looked unsure whether to follow them a moment earlier.


    Nathan got up to fetch it from the kitchen. An awkward silence ensued until Nathan filled it with a joke about Passover desserts. His hands trembled as he brought the tray of rugelach, which were like fancy cinnamon rolls with chocolate, hazelnuts, and jam.


    We didn''t say much until they were all eaten. Nathan told a few more campy jokes, and the atmosphere mellowed, enough so that Deon waded back into fraught waters.


    "Can I ask another heavy question?" he requested.


    Nathan looked nervous but said, "Sure."


    "I was thinkin'' ''bout what Faerie before she left. Are Jews white? I never thought about it before, but now it feels strange."


    Nathan sighed dramatically, relishing the opportunity to monologue, dreading the subject matter.


    "You can ask a room full of Jews that question, and a fight will break out. No one agrees on anything, let alone everything. The short answer is it''s complicated. Jews can come from anywhere and in any color. While some disagree, it''s commonly accepted that Jewishness can be both a religion and an ancestry. The religion is Judaism; the ancestry would be ''Jewish People.'' Many ancestral Jews, but not all, are white. Jesus was Jewish, but he was not white. Because of the Diaspora, Jews spread across Europe, Africa, and some even as far as Russia and Asia.


    "Jews that migrated to Europe integrated into whiter cultures. By the time the concept of ''whiteness'' was invented, many ancestral Jews were folded into it. But because antisemitism is ancient and insidious, their whiteness was always conditional. Jews with darker skin were excluded from most white privileges. Even within Jewish communities, there''s a lot of colorism; that''s like the price of admission into whiteness: you''ve got to shit on people darker than you.


    "Incidentally, that''s how it worked for the Irish, too. When war and famine ravaged Ireland, Irish refugees came to America and were treated like garbage. White America eventually accepted and embraced the Irish, but only after they joined police forces and unions that brutalized and excluded Black folks. That''s how the Irish ''earned'' their inclusion into whiteness.


    "But to get to the heart of your question, one has to ask: who are white people? What is whiteness? Am I white?


    "Again, you''re going to get a lot of varied, passionate responses. I can only answer for myself, and you should take it with a grain of salt.


    "I think of whiteness as separate and distinct from having white, pale, or fair skin. Whiteness isn''t so much a biological ancestry as it is a belief system. It''s like a religion, and like any religion, it only has as much power as we give it.


    "Whiteness is a racist illusion. There was never any unified European culture before evil people invented chattel slavery and racism to justify their crimes against humanity. Racism was wielded in the most horrific ways imaginable against our fellow brothers and sisters.


    "And the entire terminology is based on nonsense. I mean, look at Sebastian. He''s the palest person at this table, and even he''s not white. He''s like a pinkish-beige. Or take the word Caucasian. That word denotes a group of people from the Caucasus region near what we call the Middle East, and most Caucasians are brown.


    "So when Faerie called me white, l didn''t bark because whiteness is an idea, and I don''t align myself with it. I get white privileges, I know that, but that''s different from being white. The purpose of whiteness is to divide people based on superficial nonsense. That''s it. Whiteness is racism. Some people disagree, so I tend to keep that opinion to myself."


    The conversation winded down as we finished our dessert. It was getting late, so we thanked Nathan for his hospitality and went home with a lot on our minds.

 May 2009 - Debrief

    "So to summarize: I invited Faerie and Alex like you suggested, and it backfired in a big fucking way," I finished in a huff. "I don''t know what I did wrong, and I''m even more confused now than I was before!"


    The pressures of Dani''s job were getting to her, and the strain was showing. New lines were appearing across her face, and she drank a lot more coffee than she used to. She took a big gulp before responding.


    "I''m so sorry. It''s terrible when Queer family fight each other."


    "Do you think Faerie''s right? Is drag sexist and transphobic?"


    A look flashed across Dani''s face that resembled panic. She didn''t want to weigh in on the issue.


    "I don''t know. It can be those things. Too often, cis gay men will put on drag as an excuse to be racist or sexist or transphobic. They say, ''I''m just playing a character,'' but the character is a reflection of them.


    "Drag queens are given this enormous platform, and too many use that platform to exclude and undermine other members of our family. But I think condemning all drag risks throwing the baby out with the bathwater. Modern drag was invented by trans women to explore and push boundaries within gender.


    "RuPaul''s Drag Race was a hit all over the city, so Ru''s vision of drag has expanded the audience. But the drag Ru showcases is designed to appeal to mainstream audiences. All the contestants on Drag Race are cis men, or at least they pass as cis men. I can see how Faerie might feel excluded and taken advantage of.


    "But two things stand out to me in the story you described. For one thing, Nathan is sort of suggesting that gender is irrelevant. Of course, that''s his perspective, but it might be unkind to say to a transitioning woman. See, to Faerie, her gender is a simple truth. It''s as real as your arm. So when Nathan dismisses gender, in a way, he''s dismissing something real and important to Faerie.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.


    "Of course, everything you do will offend someone. There''s no pleasing everybody, but it''s important to consider why someone might be offended. Ask if it needs to be said and if you''re punching down. Because that''s the difference between a fair fight and a bully.


    "I see your eyebrows scrunching together. Let me explain. If you make fun of the president, it''s not a big deal because he''s so much more powerful than you. You literally cannot hurt him. But if you make fun of the president for being black, then in essence, you''re making fun of Black people. That would be punching down because you don''t experience race-based persecution. On the other hand, if the president made fun of you, he would be punching down, because you''re effectively powerless to fight back.


    "It''s not always clear, but when drag queens make transgender people the butt of a joke, they''re punching down, because drag queens have a stage, and they can stop doing drag whenever they want.


    "Which brings us to privilege. First of all, I hate that word. It''s become so weaponized it''s almost lost its meaning. We all have various privileges. It doesn''t make someone good or bad or better or worse than anyone else, but it matters because context matters.


    "What stood out to me in your story was how privileged Nathan was relative to the rest of you in that room. For example, Nathan said gender and race were illusions. Maybe he''s right. So what? It only takes a casual glance to see that the illusion has teeth. On average, women are paid less than men for the same job. The darker your skin, the less you''re paid. Nathan''s clever ideas don''t stop the US census from asking you to fill in those boxes marked ''race'' and ''gender.'' Nathan might be right. I don''t know, but what difference would it make either way?


    "Nathan''s opinions are interesting, but he is a fair-skinned, cis male saying race and gender don''t matter. He lives in a society set up to benefit him in innumerable ways. That doesn''t make him right or wrong; just don''t take everything he says as gospel, yeah?"


    I nodded and smiled. "Okay." How lucky was I to have Dani to help me sort through these kinds of things?


    "Anyway," Dani said, "that''s all I got. Maybe I''ll think of something better later. Let''s put a pin in this and come back to it another time. How is your book coming along? Have you written anything since the last chapter you showed me?"


    "Yeah. Oddly enough, this whole disaster got my creative juices going. I wrote two chapters for my new favorite character. Their name is Rowan. I guess they are transfeminine and genderfluid. But they''re a magical, shapeshifting firefox, so those definitions need not apply."

 May 2009 - Morgan & Jude

    "Wow. This is thrilling stuff." Dani handed the chapters back to me.


    "You like it?" I asked.


    "I love what you''ve done with the Reynard/Rowan character. That''s a lot of fun. You stuff a lot into these two chapters. Let me see... In six pages, you flesh out Rowan''s backstory, introduce Lilith, establish several new characters and relationships. Then you confront the fallen possessing Morgan. It''s packed. That''s not a critique. The pace rolls along. I wonder if some of this might benefit from more space to breathe."


    "You think it needs more details and pauses?"


    "Maybe. And it''s hard to mourn for Rafael because I didn''t spend any time with him. He and Morgan both existed offstage for most of the story. Even their attack was offstage. Mostly I feel bad for Lyn that her father and brother are dead and her sister is possessed by a demon, but even there, I never saw them interact, so..."If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    I shrugged sadly. "Yeah, I see what you mean. I''ma go back and flesh out Morgan''s character soon. I wanted to jump into the conflict, but that''s the sacrifice, right? Establish characters and relationships, or give the reader something exciting?"


    Dani smiled knowingly. "What else happened since our last meeting?"


    I thought for a moment and remembered, "My brother Jude called me. He turns 18 next month, and he wants to come to San Francisco and live with me."


    Dani''s usual placid composure broke in surprise. I didn''t mention my family often. "Are you and Jude close?"


    An itch flared across my chest. I scratched it absentmindedly and answered, "Sort of. When Morgan died, he and I were all the other had, so we were alone, together. We don''t get along... at all, but we understand each other." I shrugged. "We''re brothers."


    Dani''s bespectacled gaze was piercing; her voice, compassionate but firm: "how did Morgan die?"


    My body tensed, and I looked away from Dani around at her office. She shared it with another caseworker. When Dani met with clients, her associate left the room. Was that right? Was I a client? Dani said she was my friend, but it was her job to say that, wasn''t it?


    "It was a car crash," I said finally, scratching my chest again. "Three days before Christmas. It ruined the holiday for me forever."


    Dani sat quietly. Her nod seemed to whisper, ''go on.''

 December 2002 - Law of Averages

    Morgan was sixteen, riding in the backseat with four of her friends, going home from a Christmas pageant. She played the Virgin Mary. I don''t know what that means, or if it means anything. My life is often like that. I was born 8-8-88. My sister died 12-22-2002.


    I''m a rational person. I know it''s a coincidence. The Law of Averages, you know. In a random sequence of numbers, these things happen.


    Remember I told you I had another sister? Anna was stillborn on 8-8-85. She would have had Turner''s Syndrome. My mother cremated the body, keeping the ashes in a box in her bedroom, always with her, like some cosmic foreshadowing.


    In my gramma''s house, there was a painting of a boy and girl crossing a rickety bridge while a guardian angel watches over them. The sister is a little taller, and she''s comforting her brother and leading them forward. When I was small, I thought it was painted for us: Morgan and me, with Anna as our guardian angel.


    Of course, that was just a coincidence, too. No guardian angel watched over Morgan that night. The mayor''s truck collided with her friend''s Toyota Camry. The car broke in two. Her seatbelt ripped, and Morgan was thrown from the car and smashed into a light post. She was the only casualty.


    The coroner said Morgan died immediately from blunt force trauma to the heart, but days later, I found on the light post where Morgan died a letter. Someone wrote they held her hand as she died, but that meant she lived for a while after being tossed from the car. I suppose one or the other lied to make us feel better. Sometimes I wonder which was true, like a question that haunts me.


    I remember that night so clearly. The way moonlight silhouetted Reba as she collapsed in tears in the doorway. The officer and priest spoke euphemistically about ''an accident'' and ''moved on.'' I remember being confused and anxious because no one would speak straight to me.


    When Tom finally said the words, "Morgan is dead," I didn''t feel anything. I don''t mean that quasi-romantic emptiness that poets write about; I mean, I felt no different. If anything, I felt hungry and more confused. Morgan and I were Irish twins. We went everywhere together. Everyone around me was distraught, but I just wanted to finish eating my General Tso''s chicken, and I couldn''t understand it. Why wasn''t I sad? Didn''t I love her most? Something must be horribly wrong with me, I realized. What kind of monster doesn''t mourn his best friend and sister? I hated myself so completely it brought me to tears. Tom tried to comfort me, but he didn''t understand, and it made me hate myself more because my grief was a lie.


    The weight of reality hadn''t settled in yet. I know that now. I was fourteen, and death wasn''t something I was capable of understanding all at once in that moment. Morgan was dead. I knew that, but for days, for a second every morning, I''d wonder why she hadn''t woken me up early to get ready for school.


    I remember, weeks later, watching a TV show. A character asked her brother to walk her down the aisle, and I thought, ''I bet Morgan will ask me to do that when she gets marri-'' and then I remembered. I couldn''t imagine a future without her in it, not at first. But reality is relentless.


    Morgan''s death broke my mother. Tom carried her home and into bed, screaming and pulling her hair. She stayed in bed for months, smoking weed and hardly eating. It terrified Jude and me. We weren''t very self-sufficient. Morgan was the precocious one. Jude and I were free-spirited troublemakers. With Mom incapacitated, Tom moved in with his pregnant wife and newborn son to "help take care of us."


    I should give Tom a proper introduction. He was thirteen years older than me but five inches shorter, a detail that offended him to his core. Now I look back on Tom with pity, but back then, I loved and hated and feared Tom in equal measure. He was my big brother but also my worst bully. He would hit me, or twist my arm, or threaten me, or belittle me, or anyone else who made him feel insecure, including his wife, Reba. She was also taller than Tom. You''d think Tom would marry a short girl, but Reba had more essential qualities: gullibility and low self-esteem.


    Tom had a pattern, a modus operandi: he finds a girl, turns on the charm, and gets her pregnant within a few months. His charming mask slips before the baby is born, and she has doubts, but after giving birth, after seeing her family together for the first time, she convinces herself it was her mind playing tricks. For a while, they enjoy a beautiful fiction. But reality is relentless, and the next time it asserts itself, she wonders if she made a huge mistake. She considers leaving him. Tom begs. Let''s have another baby, he says, and because she''s pliable and romantic and naive, she says yes, and embraces the fiction once more.If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    I called it a pattern because it''s happened three times that I know of. I heard there were others, but Tom swears those babies aren''t his.


    Tom and Reba moved in to "take care of us" as their beautiful fiction began to fall apart. Tom stopped pretending to be kind or thoughtful. Reba was pregnant with baby number two, and the combined pressures of pregnancy, early motherhood, grief, a strained marriage, and the distance from her family in Ohio, all brought Reba to a state of hysteria semi-regularly. Tom was either unable or unwilling to help his pregnant wife and child, so baby Connor watched a lot of Shrek, and I became both nanny and family therapist while Tom went to "work." I put work in quotes because Tom couldn''t keep a job for more than a few months, and I can guess what he did between jobs.


    What I''m about to say will seem arrogant or delusional, but it''s the truth. I only mention it because it''s relevant to my family dynamic: I was the smartest person in my family. I don''t have any evidence to back up that claim, except everyone in my family knew it as an uncontested fact. I don''t think that makes me particularly intelligent: it just meant my family was very dumb, except Morgan and Jude, but she died, and he was three years younger than me, so I had a head start. Jude is clever, though, and funny, but the ugly truth is, we forgot about him completely.


    Jude was eleven when his big sister died. His mom lost herself in grief, and, I''m ashamed to say, so did I. We were all so absorbed in our own selfish depressions. We couldn''t, or wouldn''t, see how lost and alone he was. The feelings I described earlier, he experienced, too. We could have bonded. God knows he tried. I just... didn''t want to.


    That''s how I was back then. I didn''t want to bond or connect. I didn''t want to talk to anyone. I didn''t want to go to school and see strangers laughing. I hated them. I hated my teachers, who looked at me with compassion and sadness and gave me passing grades even though I ignored my homework. I hated the kids who were suddenly nice to me after years of tormenting me. I hated them most of all. How dare they be kind to me now. A few bullies kept it up, for whatever reason, but it didn''t sting like it used to. Their barbs and shoves seemed so distant from me now. I developed a morbid sort of appreciation for them. At least my bullies were consistent. My hatred for them was something clean and uncomplicated.


    Besides, they were quaint compared to the bully at home. Which brings me back to my earlier mention of intelligence, or lack thereof. The point is Mom, Tom, and Reba all came to me with their emotional and intellectual quandaries because they thought I was smart. The truth is I was a stupid child. I was fourteen, pretending to be grown-up because it was easier than processing my grief. More and more, I pretended to be someone else, somewhere else. I pretended I was cynical and superior. I lied to myself, and my family believed the lie.


    It''s hardly surprising. Self-deception comes naturally in my family. Tom convinced himself he was a hero, rescuing his family from the precipice. Mom convinced herself Tom was trustworthy, that she hadn''t raised a violent sociopath. I convinced myself I was intelligent. Reba convinced herself her marriage could be saved. And we all supported each other in our delusions because that''s what family does.


    Speaking of delusions, Mom and Tom became convinced that pigs were spying on them. You see, the truck driver that T-boned the car my sister was in happened to be the mayor. Mom sued him for Morgan''s death. After a year of legal dancing, Mom was awarded nearly $200,000.


    But in the intervening months and sometime after, Tom became convinced that the mayor was compelling police to tail the family in search of dirt or whatever. I don''t know. But I know Mom smoked pot, and in 2003 that was still illegal in the state of Washington, so she got paranoid easily and not without good cause.


    I vividly remember the day Mom got the settlement check. We had all abstractly discussed what might be done with the money. I suggested buying an RV so we''d never be homeless again. Jude wanted to open a restaurant. Reba suggested putting money aside for Jude and me to pay for college. Tom wanted a new Dodge Truck with a V8 engine. Mom wanted to travel the world. I guess she compromised (?) by buying two Dodge trucks with V8 engines. Seeing Mom and Tom drive those giant gas guzzlers home for the first time, I had a vision of our future.


    Do you know most people who win the lottery are broke again in about a year? They call it a curse, but it''s simple: most people who win the lottery have been poor all their lives. They''ve never seen that much money. They think it''ll last forever, so they spend it all. Money management is for rich people, and most lotto winners haven''t been rich long enough to know how to manage their fortune. By the time they figure it out, their fortune is spent. That''s a lot like what happened to my family.


    Mom didn''t buy a house, or a restaurant, or an RV; nor did she set money aside for college. Instead, she rented two jumbo-sized Uhaul trucks, and we packed all our belongings and drove across the country for a month. Mom didn''t know where we were going, but she knew she wanted to leave Washington, so we wandered. We drove to Nevada, then Colorado, then Texas, and finally ended up in Montana, for some reason.

 New Years Eve, 2003 - Genesis

    In a motor lodge outside of Bozeman, surrounded by virgin snow-capped peaks and icy cliffs, we would move into our new temporary home on the 1st of January. But first, Tom and Reba would have one last fight.


    When the argument first broke, I picked up little Connor and baby Carrie and moved them to safety. I haven''t yet mentioned how attached I was to Connor. When he learned how to walk, he walked to me.


    The night Morgan died, Connor stumbled over to me. I held him close and cried for the first time and felt a miserable sort of relief. He was my buddy, and I was his.


    Protecting Connor from Tom was more important to me than anything. When Tom was away at "work," I pleaded with Reba to take the kids and leave Tom. I''d ask her why she stayed with a man who hit her, who hurt her children, but she loved him, she said. She was alone in Washington. Where would she go? How could she leave? She spent all day at home taking care of the kids. There was no time to make friends or chase opportunities.


    Meanwhile, Tom grew tired of his dull, simple wife. Just before we left Washington, he found a new girlfriend named Karina. She was a young, buxom blonde, smarter than Tom was used to, and even funny. I might have liked her if I didn''t think she was into Tom for the money and the drama.


    For some dumb, fucked-up reason, Tom decided to bring Karina with us on our month-long trek across the states. That went over as smoothly as you''d expect, considering Tom''s ex-wife drove the other Uhaul. Yeah, they divorced (actually, they were never legally married, but they called each other husband and wife for a bit until they didn''t).


    So it should surprise no one that Tom and Reba fought bitterly and frequently on our roundabout voyage. I could tell when a fight was brewing. I knew when Conner and Carrie needed to be secured in another room. I''d seen it played out dozens of times, but it was worse those days. Before, when Tom hurt one of us, it was a demonstration of force but also a show of control, of benevolent restraint. He thought of himself as a hero, remember. He used to twist my arm until it almost snapped, but it never did. He always let go just before lasting damage was done, and then he''d smile as if he had rescued me.


    But that was before. On this particular night, a loathing filled the air between Tom and Reba. Karina... well, she didn''t help. For the most part, Karina ignored Reba and avoided her, but there was no respect between them. But on this particular night, Karina said something snide and dismissive, and Reba blew up. She called Karina vile names. Karina left the room at Tom''s behest, but then Reba turned her fury on him. I shut the door to Conner and Carrie''s room and stood sentinel, as I''d done dozens of times before. I thought I could protect Reba. Sometimes I stood between Tom and Reba. Sometimes I tried to pull him off her. These days I wonder if my presence agitated the situation because Tom loved an audience. I was so naive and stupid.


    Reba shouted something vicious and hateful, and Tom slapped her across the face. I ran to Reba, but before I could do anything, Tom grabbed her by the throat and slammed her into the couch. I pulled Tom by the shoulders, but he turned and punched me full in the stomach. I collapsed, gasping for air and crying. Tom turned and grabbed Reba by the skull, pressing his thumbs against her eyes and shaking her head into the couch as she screamed, and Mom screamed, and Jude watched and cried, and I writhed, useless on the floor.


    Karina reentered, and immediately, Tom let go of Reba''s skull. Reba fled the room. Tom stood calmly and reasonably explained that Reba was asking for it, and everything was fine. I watched with muted horror and disgust as Mom and Karina nodded along to Tom''s crafted version of events. I hated them all in that moment. Even poor Jude, as he nodded along with them, tears at bay. Jude knew better. Jude knew Tom was evil, and Mom was delusional, but God, he was so small. What could he do? I left them to their lies, returned to Conner and Carrie, told them everything was okay, and held them close.


    The police came promptly. Reba finally had enough. She told them everything. They arrested Tom, put Mom in handcuffs for interfering, and facilitated Reba''s escape to Ohio with the kids. I carried Conner to the caddie that took them away. I still remember the look on Reba''s face of sadness and joy, regret and relief, as she hugged me goodbye. And I remember Conner crying when I shut the door and never saw them again.


    I think of that night as the worst of my life, which might surprise you since it has a happy ending. After all, Reba finally took my advice, the kids would be safe from Tom forever, and no one died. I got what I wanted.


    Tom was released from jail a few days later, sadly, and the rest of us moved into a gorgeous log house over a buffalo pass, where Native Americans once chased buffalo to their deaths. Bones could still be found at the bottom of the cliff.


    Livingston, Montana was a retreat town for rich skiing enthusiasts. Surrounded by mountains, it was a picturesque wonderland in the winter. The view of the surrounding mountains covered in snow is, to this day, one of the most breathtaking sights I''ve ever seen. It was the home Mom had always wanted. It had high ceilings, and everything was polished wood. It had big open windows that looked out onto town; at night, the lights in the dark distance were a spectacle.


    We stayed in Mom''s perfect home for less than a year. Remember what I said about lotto winners? The house was outside our means, especially with two new trucks and moving expenses. Mom never had that kind of money before, and she thought it would last forever. But once we moved in, Mom took a look at her bank statements, and things went from bad to worse.


    She resigned herself to finding work, something she detested. She couldn''t afford the lifestyle she wanted on her own, so she convinced Tom to pay her rent. He found work off-and-on, as was his habit, so rent was inconsistent, and even when it was consistent, they still fought over money. The thing is, my mother loves money. She''s a greedy, grubby person. Tom agreed to pay rent, no big deal, but it wasn''t enough and never would be. She always needed more money.


    She didn''t want to work. She abhorred labor of any kind, including the household variety. I had washed the dishes since I was nine. Morgan used to clean the bathrooms. It became Jude''s chore when she died. Mom didn''t cook or clean or wash clothes. She used to scream for me to bring her a glass of coffee or water because she couldn''t be bothered to get out of bed. Rent was never enough because, deep down, Patsy wanted Tom to dump Karina and spend the rest of his life taking care of her.


    They fought everyday like a married couple over anything and everything but always money. Jude told us all he thought about suicide, but no one listened. I found a job at a movie theater to get away from home. At work and school, I kept to myself and said nothing to anyone. The students in my classes called me ''The Boy Who Never Smiles'' because no one knew my name.


    One morning, Patsy yelled to wake me up, "Bastian, come quick. Karina has a knife, and she''s threatening to stab it up her pussy to kill the baby." I was 15.


    I rushed downstairs and saw Karina pacing like a madwoman on the wrap-around porch. Everyone else was in the kitchen. Karina was muttering invective, trembling, and holding a large kitchen knife.


    "What the Hell did you do?" I accused Tom.


    "Nothing! We went to a party, and someone slipped her something. She''s coming down from a bad trip."If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.


    "Jesus Christ. And she''s pregnant?!"


    Tom shrugged. Fucking dumbass.


    I stepped out onto the porch. Karina and I had become friends. I liked her. She trusted me. More than the rest of my family, at least. Certainly more than she trusted Tom, considering his dumb ass was hiding in the kitchen.


    "What''s going on?" I asked her.


    "I''m jonesing and- and I want some crack!"


    "Well, I can''t help with that but I can sit with you, if you like. We can talk shit, or- I read a good joke online. You wanna hear it?"


    "No! I don''t wanna fucking talk! I want. Crack!"


    "I hear you. You''re hurting. You want crack. But that''s what''s hurting you now. Taking more will hurt you again. The only way the pain stops is to ride it out. So I''ll sit here with you for as long as you need."


    As I said this, Karina began cutting her jeans with the knife, haphazardly, until the knife slipped, and she cut her forehead. She screamed in rage and threw the knife, holding her face and crying.


    Quickly and quietly, I grabbed the knife and opened the kitchen door, handing it off to Jude, who was watching everything. He was 12.


    "Nice work!" whispered Patsy, with a phone to her ear. "I''m on the line with police dispatch. Someone''s on their way."


    I panicked for a second. Then I grabbed a fresh towel and returned to the patio to comfort Karina. She was sobbing and holding her eyes, blood running down her hands and cheeks.


    I touched her shoulder gently. "Let me help, please. I have a towel."


    She held fists to her eyes and shook her head. "I hurt my baby! Oh, God. What have I done?"


    I sat beside her, shoulders touching, bringing the towel to her wound. I said, "Hey. One mistake won''t ruin the kid''s life. Kids are tough. Besides, if you''re not ready, I''ll take you to the clinic myself. I don''t have a driver''s license, but I stole mom''s car for a midnight joyride a few times. I can do it again."


    Karina laughed, then she saw flashing lights up the road. She looked at me, terrified.


    "Mom called the pigs. If they see you like this, they''ll 50-51 you, best case. Go to Jeanie''s house. Sleep. Drink lots of water. Go, quick, before they reach the driveway."


    Karina''s expression said everything. She hugged me, leaving blood on my shirt, and then leapt off the balcony to run down the buffalo pass, finally jumping a fence into a neighbor''s yard and disappearing down the road.


    The police came and went while I took a shower to wash the blood off my neck.


    Later I learned that Jeanie helped Karina come down, took her to an abortion clinic, and even paid for her plane ticket back to Washington. I never saw her again.


    So you can imagine why I spent all my free time in a book or a game or some other form of escapism. I studied religion and mythology. I read His Dark Materials, A Song of Ice and Fire, The Vampire Chronicles, Island of the Blue Dolphins, Crown of Stars, Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Dragonriders of Pern, A Brief History of Time, Hitchhiker''s Guide to the Galaxy, and more that I''ve forgotten. I saw every movie that came out that year. I played Elder Scrolls nonstop. I was desperate to escape my miserable existence but also desperate for answers I didn''t know I needed.


    That was the beginning of my fantasy world. It started as a question: where did Morgan go? Will I ever see her again? I was raised to believe in God and Jesus Christ. Morgan was baptized, so if there was a heaven, she was supposed to be in it. But the more I learned about Christianity''s history, the more repulsed I was by it. The corruption. Colonization. Missionaries. The Crusades. The Inquisition. It was all inhumane. What kind of God would condone such evil? And did such a God deserve worship?


    And meanwhile, I was realizing I liked men, and if those TV Christians were right, that meant I was going to Hell, and I''d never see my sister again. That terrified me. For five years, I spoke of it with no one. Morgan was the only person who knew. She confronted me about it months before her death. She told me she loved me no matter what. We didn''t talk about it again, and she never told anyone, taking my secret to her grave.


    I hid myself away as much as possible but couldn''t hide completely. I bought a sexy magazine of men boning, and it was discovered at work. They fired me. I was so humiliated and scared my family would find out, I panicked and got on a bus to Bozeman.


    I wasn''t thinking clearly. The plan was to get a job that night and pray that my family never learned the truth. It wasn''t a very good plan, and unsurprisingly, it didn''t work. I filled out some applications, but no one interviewed me or offered me a job, and as night fell, I realized I was stranded 20 miles from home, and the bus stopped running half an hour ago.


    I called Mom and asked for a ride. She said I should have planned better. It wasn''t her responsibility to pick me up. I got out there by myself, and I could get back by myself, and then she hung up the phone.


    I had no friends in Montana and nowhere to go. I was stranded. I cried and felt sorry for myself, wandering the city for an hour or more, going nowhere, growing increasingly disconsolate. And also terrified because I was sure my family would learn I bought gay porn, and my life would be Hell from then on. Tom would humiliate me and call me a faggot every chance he got. Mom would cry because it meant I''d burn forever in Hell. Maybe they''d disown me.


    My misery and fear consumed me until nothing was left but self-loathing. I was useless without Morgan. She was my other half: conscientious and grounded, whereas I was reckless and imaginative. She was confident and popular; I was insecure and bullied. She was my guide and protector. Without her, I was aimless and alone and so very tired.


    It was well after midnight when I stumbled upon the bright neon lights of a 24-hour pharmacy. With blurry, tearful eyes, I looked up and saw the lights like the dawn, and a terrible idea came to me.


    I hated my life, my family, and most of all myself. The idea of living with myself for the rest of my life was too horrible to accept on that night in a random pharmacy parking lot.


    According to my mother, various media personalities, and the Bible, the punishment for suicide was eternal hellfire. But they also said that about gay people, so it seemed to me the game was rigged from the start.


    But that didn''t factor much into my decision because at the time, I didn''t believe in anyone or anything. I assumed religion was a hoax spread for the sake of social cohesion. In my mind, Morgan was gone, and life was simply a series of coincidences. The Law of Averages. The origin of life was as inevitable as death. The sweet embrace of oblivion. An eternal, dreamless sleep.


    With my mind set, I walked into the pharmacy. The blinding, fluorescent light made everything look sterile, like an asylum.


    "Asleep" by The Smiths was playing on the overhead radio. I bought a soda and a box of sleeping pills.


    I wasn''t sure if the pills would kill me, but I hoped so. I found a tree to rest under and swallowed every pill in the box. I was too tired to cry. Instead, I closed my eyes and went to sleep, to dreams of sorrow and spite and profound relief.


    But I didn''t die. Lethal sleeping pills were legislated heavily in the ''70s and ''80s. I didn''t know that, and like I said, I wasn''t thinking clearly. I was just miserable, cold, tired, and afraid I would always be. Instead, I dreamed intense, vivid dreams.


    I dreamed of Morgan, of Adam and Eve and Lilith, and a world where Morgan wasn''t gone, but trapped, where she could be rescued, and I could see her again.


    That was the genesis of Eden.


    I dreamed I was on an island beach, washed ashore by the tide. I could feel the sand beneath me and the warmth of the sun on my face. I opened my eyes and saw an angel robed in blinding light, glory incarnate, with dove-like wings and a face of peerless beauty.


    "Get up," the angel ordered. "Your sister is in danger, and only you can save her."


    Raf coughed the water out of his lungs and tried to remember what happened. His father¡­ The last thing Raf could remember was falling, and as the rocky waters neared, Raf blacked out. Had he died? Raf sat up and felt his body and felt very much alive and unharmed.


    Wait! The angel said Morgan was in danger!


    "What do you mean, ''in danger?'' and what happened to my father?" he asked.


    "Your father is dead. A fallen known as Azazel killed him. Now it possesses your sister, and if you don''t save her, Azazel will consume her soul completely."


    Raf couldn''t think. There was a ringing in his ears. What does this mean? he thought. What do I do?


    "What do I do?" he pleaded. "How do I stop it?"


    The angel responded with a voice of wind chimes and cascades, "You will need to learn soul magic to trap the fallen and free your sister. To do that, you must enter Oceania and find the Time Dragon."


    Raf panicked. Oceania? Soul magic? An angel and a dragon? This is crazy, he thought. Am I dead? Could this be a dream? He felt tears on his face.


    "Clear your head," the angel commanded. "Go to the caves on the far side of the island."


    Raf picked himself up and tried to do as he was told. Morgan needed him. He had to be strong.


    "Good," said the angel. "I will remain by your side as you cross the island."


    With that, the angel dispersed into a cloud of golden light that encircled and enveloped Raf. He felt something like a warm mist brush across his skin, but otherwise, no different. Raf felt alone and scared, but he knew the angel was near.


    "What should I call you?" he asked.


    At first, the angel didn''t respond, and Raf thought he wouldn''t get an answer, but finally, the angel said, "You can call me Sophia. Start moving. We have a long way to go."


    End of Book I

 Book II - Jude - June 2009

    The sky was overcast and fog was rolling in. I was alone outside San Francisco''s Greyhound Station, drinking coffee, listening to "Time Has Come Today" by The Chambers Brothers, and waiting for my little brother''s bus to arrive.


    It was Jude''s 18th birthday, and he was coming to live with me. I was thrilled, of course, but also afraid.


    Life had been hard on Jude. He barely knew his father. Our mother, Patsy, was an addict and a narcissist. Our much older half-brother, Tom, a violent bully. Our sister died in a car accident. And then, over a year ago, I ran away to San Francisco, leaving him alone with Patsy and Tom.


    It''s the biggest regret of my life. I don''t regret leaving. I had to leave. But I should have taken Jude with me. He was only 16, so I didn''t, but I shouldn''t have left him alone. With them.


    When Jude walked out of the Greyhound Station, I hardly recognized him. He had grown fat and a long tangle of unwashed hair. His neck and shoulders were hunched over like he was trying to make himself small, but he was tall, taller than me, though his posture made him seem shorter. His clothes were torn and stained and too big for him, like he was hiding under a circus tent.


    When we saw each other, we didn''t run or shout; our communication was more understated than that, though we were overjoyed. I gave him a strong hug, but when we separated, he seemed uncomfortable.


    "So you''re really gay now, huh?" he remarked, gesturing to my outfit. I was wearing tight, grey, acid-washed jeans; a black jacket; and a t-shirt with a man reading a newspaper, as an explosion of birds, butterflies, and colors burst out the text. My fingernails were painted black with cosmic colors. My hair was dyed black to better contrast my light blue eyes, and each ear was pierced at an 8 gauge. It occurred to me that I''d changed dramatically since last he saw me.


    "I prefer Queer," I said with a shrug. "But gay isn''t an insult. You can call me gay."


    "Does that mean you''re bi?" he asked.


    Smiling, I sighed. "Let''s get moving. You can ask questions on the way. Need help with your bag?"


    "Yeah, thanks. Where are we headed?"


    "Up a few blocks, there''s a streetcar. It''s about a 20-minute ride to my place. You can store your stuff and shower there."


    We were South of Market, a central district of San Francisco. Surrounded by people and skyscrapers, Jude was wide-eyed and smiling as we walked to Market Street, the busiest traffic artery of San Francisco. We jumped on the streetcar going to Castro, and I gave Jude the window seat so he could watch the city as we rode by.


    Eventually, he turned to me and asked, "But you are into men, though, right?"


    I nodded, "Not all men, obviously, but yeah, some of them."


    "Are you also into women?"


    "Sometimes. Less often, but it happens. It''s just easier with men, I think. The sex is less complicated. For one thing, pregnancy usually isn''t a concern with two guys."


    "Have you ever been with a woman?"


    "A couple times. Just one-night stands, though. They never went anywhere. Have you?"


    "Yeah."


    "Who?"


    "Heather."


    "Heather¡­?"


    "Mom''s friend."


    "She''s forty-something."Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.


    "She sucks a mean dick."


    "I''ll take your word for it. Good for you, I guess? I don''t know how it works for straight people. This is our stop."


    I still lived in a small studio in the Perramont Hotel with housing assistance from Castro Street Youth Housing. Jude had to be registered and leave his state ID at the door.


    After he took a shower, we sat in my room, me on my bed, Jude in a chair I found on the sidewalk.


    "You got any weed?" he asked me.


    "You used to hate weed. When did that change?"


    "After you left, Mom and I moved back in with Gramma. She lives like 3 miles out of town. It''s fucking boring out in the sticks. No one''s around. There''s nothing to do. So Mom gave me weed to do shit, like mow the lawn and wash the dishes."


    "You''re telling me, for the last year and a half, Mom has been bribing you, a minor, with drugs, to do your chores?"


    "They were your chores, not mine! You left! You know I have scoliosis! Pushing that damn lawn mower around hurts, and the weed helped."


    "Why the hell didn''t Tom do it, then?"


    Jude scoffed. "Tom''s busy setting his marriage on fire. He''s been losing everything in the casinos and getting drunk."


    "What a fuckin'' mess. Okay, forget all that. I want to talk to you about something, and it''s important. I''ve said this before, but it bears repeating. I''m allowed two overnight guests a week. That means you can stay here tonight and tomorrow night.


    "In the morning, we''re gonna walk to Lark Inn and get your name on the list for temporary housing. Hopefully, it won''t take five weeks. In the meantime, I''m gonna introduce you to some friends. With any luck, you won''t have to sleep outside.


    "Jude, listen. When you stay in the shelter, you''ll meet all kinds of people, and they''ll offer you all kinds of stuff. I can''t follow you around and make you make good decisions, but let me offer some advice, and I hope you take it.


    "You will experiment with drugs. I can''t stop you. You wanna smoke weed? It''s easy to find. You wanna do mushrooms or molly? Be careful where you get it, and don''t do it often. Give your brain some time to recover. The more time you give yourself between using, the better. These are not to be done casually. Same with booze. Don''t drink every day. And don''t get caught. Use responsibly, and these things won''t ruin your life. But stay away from meth, heroin, cocaine, and anything with a needle. There is no safe or responsible dosage of meth. It''ll kill you, slow and mean. It''ll hollow out your insides until there''s nothing left. I''ve seen it happen.


    "Lark Inn is perilous. Keep your head down, stay focused, and you''ll have a room of your own in a month. If you get off track, you might never find your way back. You could be homeless for the rest of your life."


    I finished speechifying, and Jude simply said, "So I guess that means you don''t have weed."


    "Of course, I have weed. This is San Francisco. Everybody smokes weed. Alright, fine. You wanna smoke with me; you gotta make me a promise. Promise that you won''t do meth or heroin, or cocaine. Anything with a syringe. Promise me."


    "Alright, fine, I promise. Now can we smoke?"


    "Okay... We gotta blow it out the window."


    I took out my smoky grey bong, Vesuvius. It had been a gift from one of my many ex-boyfriends. After the door was locked, the bowl packed, and the window opened, I taught my little brother bong stoner etiquette.


    "See, you hold the lighter to the side, so you only burn a corner instead of the entire bowl at once. That way, everybody gets greenbud."


    We watched our favorite show together, Futurama, and laughed for hours over stupid stuff. I told him I''d been taking singing classes, and he demanded we sing a song together since he''d taken choir classes in high school. We landed on "Oh, Danny Boy," a favorite of our Gramma. She used to sing it, so we both knew all the words.


    Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling


    From glen to glen, and down the mountainside.


    The summer''s gone, and all the roses falling,


    It''s you, it''s you must go and I must bide.


    But come ye back when summer''s in the meadow,


    Or when the valley''s hushed and white with snow,


    It''s I''ll be here in sunshine or in shadow,


    Oh, Danny boy, oh Danny boy, I love you so!


    But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,


    If I am dead, as dead I well may be,


    You''ll come and find the place where I am lying,


    And kneel and say an Ave there for me.


    And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,


    And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be,


    For you will bend and tell me that you love me,


    And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me!


    "Are you a tenor?" he asked me when we finished.


    "Yeah, you?"


    "Baritone."


    "I think that was the first song we ever sang together," I remarked.


    "I think you''re right¡­ So you learned to sing. What else have you been up to?"


    "I study English and Psychology, mostly, but sometimes other stuff, like music and swimming. I know how to swim now! And I''m in this creative writing class so I can get my teacher''s input on my book."


    "You''re finally writing the book?"


    "Yeah. And I wrote Morgan into it."


    The mood of the room noticeably shifted.


    "What do you mean?" He asked.


    "I based a character on her. It''s for my creative writing class. I just wrote her introduction for an assignment. It''s four pages. You wanna read it?"


    Jude paused for a second that lingered. "Sure."

 June 2009 - The Mass Invite

    Jude looked up with a withering expression. "You wrote a story from Morgan''s point of view and made yourself the hero. That''s typical. What''s a Holy Ghost?"


    He said it with equal parts love and contempt. I took no offense and answered, "The Holy Ghost is one of 8 Ikons God left on Eden. Adam killed five and stole their power. There are two Eden Spirits still unaccounted for. The Holy Ghost can influence and inspire people. That''s why Rafael is so popular and successful.


    "As for the other thing, I''m writing from multiple perspectives. This is Morgan''s chapter, and she has her own arc. Rafael isn''t a literary stand-in for me, but even if he were, it''s my story. I''ll make myself the hero if I want to."


    He dropped the pages on the bed next to me. "Whatever. You got a blanket? I''m tired."


    "Yeah, here. You can sleep on the bed. It''s small, but we can both fit if we don''t move around."


    He took the blanket and curled up in a ball on the floor. "Don''t worry about it. Night."


    I wasn''t sure what to do or say. I must have said or done something to upset him, but he wouldn''t talk about it. So I turned the lights off and went to sleep.


    The Next Morning, we started with a simple objective: sign Jude up for public services, but before the night ended, we would witness a murder and cross into another dimension.


    But first things first. Jude and I walked to the Human Services Agency in the Mission. I helped him sign up for expedited food stamps and health coverage. Next, to Lark Inn, where he wrote his name on the list for temporary housing assistance. Then we walked up two blocks to the Larkin Employment and Drop-In Center, so he could find a job and make some friends.


    Jude was meeting a career advisor. I was waiting in the lobby of the Drop-In, a red brick building with old wood floors. Industrial beams protected it against the ever-looming threat of earthquakes. The walls were yellow, reflecting the sunlight and giving everything a golden hue.


    My phone rang, so I stepped outside, where trash and human feces covered the sidewalk, cooking in the blinding noonday sun.


    "Hey, what''s up?" I answered.


    "Have you read my emails?" Nathan asked impatiently.


    "Um. I guess not. What''s going on?"


    "Chapter 3 of the Humdrum adventure is tonight! Are you coming or not? I''m buying tickets now, and there aren''t many left."


    "What?! Why didn''t they call me?"


    "They probably did. You never check your voicemail!"


    "Who leaves voicemails anymore?! What is this, the 90s? Send a text message like a normal person."


    "Are you coming or not?!"


    "Yes! Of course, I''m coming. Wait! Can you get a ticket for my brother, too? I''ll reimburse you tonight."


    "Yeah, that''s fine. They''re $25 a person, so you''ll owe me $50. We meet at 8pm. Don''t be late! And check your damn email! Bye."


    Nathan hung up abruptly. I rolled my eyes and went back inside the Drop In to check my emails. As Nathan said, I had unread emails from him and the Humdrum Institute. Opening the one from Humdrum, it read,


    Greetings, Sebastian!


    There''s no time to lose. We need your help.


    Our informants have alerted us to a Nonchalant gathering at the Hippodrome in San Francisco. According to reports, Eve herself will be in attendance. This is our chance to rescue Eve from the Cult of Nonchalance and find the door to Elsewhere!


    We need you to infiltrate the gathering as a Nonchalant cultist. Use the password ''Jejune'' at the door. You will be approached by our undercover operative once you arrive.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.


    Please follow the link to RSVP and purchase your tickets!


    I''d never heard of the Hippodrome before, but a quick Google search revealed it to be an old brothel in the Barbary Coast area of San Francisco. Nathan had already purchased two tickets, but I saw there were still more available, and I had an idea.


    Jude finished his meeting and stepped out of the Drop-In, holding several copies of his new resume they''d been working on. I told Jude what I''d learned while he was busy and showed him the email invitation.


    "I don''t know. This seems like a lot," he said nervously.


    "It''ll be so much fun! And you''ll meet my friends. Let me remind you, we''re hoping they''re nice enough to let you sleep on their couch, so put on a happy face. We''re going."


    "Ugh, fine. It starts at 8pm. That''s hours from now. Can I meet you there then?"


    "Are you sure? You''ve been in San Francisco for less than a day."


    "I''ll be fine! You said I needed to make friends, and I need to drop these resumes around the city. Go home. I''ll meet you at the Hippodrome. Send me that email so I have the details."


    I didn''t want to leave him in the Tenderloin District, but Jude was an adult, and he would probably be living in the TL before long. "Okay," I relented. "You have my number. Call or text if you need anything. You''ve got a map of the city and enough money for bus fare, right? Okay. Then I guess I''ll see you tonight."


    Jude said bye and walked outside. We had spent the last several hours together, so I wasn''t bothered that he wanted space and time to explore the city alone. Besides, there were some things I still had to do before going to the Hippodrome. I forwarded Jude the email and headed home to brave the storm and hope for the best.


    I knocked on Deon''s door first since I figured he''d be the easiest to convince.


    "Hello," Deon said from the other side of the door.


    "Hey, it''s Bastian. Open up."


    I heard noises as he crossed the room and opened the door. He had been playing Smash Bros. on an old TV. The floor of his room was covered in clothes and debris.


    "Hey, gorgeous! What''s good?" He asked, in boxers and a t-shirt.


    "Did you get a call or email from the Humdrum Institute?"


    "The what?"


    "The scavenger hunt we went on back in April."


    "Oh. Yeah. No. Nobody called me."


    "You gave them your email, didn''t you?"


    "Uhh. I don'' member."


    "Can you check your email?"


    "Yeah, gimme minute."


    He grabbed his mobile device and went to the corner in the hall with decent wifi.


    "You do that. I''ma check in on Alex and Faerie," I told him. It would take several minutes for his old mobile to access his email. In the meantime, I knocked on Alex''s door next.


    He opened the door at once, dressed and pressed. His room and appearance were both immaculately kept. His dark hair was cropped short. "Yes?" he offered as a greeting.


    "Hey, did you get a call or email from the Humdrum Institute?"


    He was surprised. "Yeah, weeks ago. I figured no one was going since the last one was such a disaster."


    "What? No. Well, yes. It was a small disaster, but it was fun, you know, until it wasn''t. Uh. But I just heard about it today, same as Deon. He''s checking now. If there''re still tickets, we''re going. We should all go."


    Alex looked torn. "That does sound like fun. I dunno if Faerie will want to, though."


    "C''mon, let''s ask her."


    "No, you don''t understand. Faerie and I broke up."


    I was stunned. "Was it bad?" I finally asked.


    "Not really, no. We''re going to be friends. That''s what we said, anyway."


    We were silent for a moment together until Deon came running around the corner.


    "I got the email!" Deon said. "And I''m looking now. There are only 3 spots left!"


    I turned excitedly back to Alex. "My ticket is already bought. You want to come, right?"


    He gave a wry shrug.


    "Okay then. Let''s convince Faerie. Deon, we better buy those tickets now before someone else does."


    "About that," Deon said sheepishly, looking down at the floor. "I get paid next Friday. I don''t have $25."


    "That''s okay," I said. "I''ll get you this time. You can buy me dinner next week."


    Deon lit up with a smile, and he gave me a giant bear hug that cracked my back.


    "Let me go," I gasped. "We still have to convince Faerie."


    Deon dropped me, and we ran upstairs to Faerie''s apartment and knocked on her door. She came to the door and asked, "Who is it?"


    "It''s me, babe," Alex answered. "Bastian and Deon are here, too."


    Faerie opened the door and looked at us quizzically. Her hair was dyed hot pink, and her nails and lipstick were turquoise. Her clothes were punk with chains and bobby pins.


    "What up, folks," she asked coolly. Sharp and sweet incense wafted out into the hall. Faerie''s room was bright and colorful, lived in but not messy.


    "The next Humdrum Adventure is tonight at 8," Alex said. "We''re all going and buying the tickets now. You wanna come?"


    Faerie was visibly affected by the invitation. "That sounds fun, but I''m broke until Friday."


    "Don''t worry about it. Bastian''s getting Deon''s ticket. I can get yours, and Friday, you can take me out to eat."


    Faerie smiled, relieved. "Okay, deal."


    "Awesome. Heads up, we''re going to that Thai place, and we''re getting everything I like; appetizers, drinks, the works."


    "Same," I told Deon. "Everything he just said."


    "Great," Deon said. "We should all go out! Can we?"


    Faerie and Alex shrugged and laughed. "That''s a great idea," Faerie said.


    "Okay, awesome. Let''s buy those tickets," I said to Alex, who quickly agreed. We went to our respective rooms and devices to make it happen.


    I showered, shaved, and dressed, choosing a navy blue shirt, black slacks, and a thin silver tie. Finally, I brushed my hair and applied moisturizer.


    I was ready, but the others weren''t, and Jude was still exploring the city. It would be several hours before the event began, so I smoked a fat bowl and wrote a few pages.

 June 2009 - Humdrum - Part 3

    My alarm rang so I stopped writing, gathered the other street urchins, and texted Jude and Nathan to say we were in commute.


    Barbary Coast was a charming upscale neighborhood. Two security guards stood outside the gated entrance to the Hippodrome. One was a strikingly handsome man, his muscles testing the limits of his blue uniform; the other, a broad-shouldered woman with tattoos and black hair slicked into a pompadour. Billie clubs hung from their belts.


    I spoke first. "We''re here for the Nonchalant gathering."


    "Password?" the muscular man asked.


    "Jejune."


    The pompadoured woman opened the golden gates. We stepped into an enclosed vestibule and knocked on large wooden doors. An opening appeared in the door. A beautiful young woman''s face on the other side.


    "Names and reservations please?" she inquired, and we introduced ourselves.


    Then the door opened, and we stepped into the most sumptuous room I''d ever seen. The walls, tables, and lamp shades were covered in rich dark blues.


    On a stage, a band played a bluesy rendition of Nancy Sinatra''s "Bang, Bang."


    The hostess was dressed in a sharp blue suit. Her name tag read Alice. Yellow curls framed her face, and she had a bubbly, infectious smile.


    "Welcome, everyone," she greeted the four of us. "If you''ll follow me, I''ll show you to your table."


    She led us across a checkered marble floor to a booth with a view of the stage.


    "Here y''all go," Alice said, handing us each a menu. "Order at the bar. Reverend Wu will take the stage in 30 minutes. Some of the highest order Nonchalant will be in attendance. I encourage y''all to meet them. In the meantime, enjoy the band."


    "I have a question," I said. Alice smiled at me in response. "We''re expecting more people. When August, Nathan, and Jude arrive, can you bring them here?"


    "Will do," Alice answered, and then returned to her station.


    Faerie glared at me. "You failed to mention Nathan was coming."


    "He invited me. Look, I''m sorry y''all got into it last time. Just avoid each other. There''s plenty of other people to talk to."


    I looked at the menu, mostly to end the conversation.


    The front was a menu of murder mystery puns. ''Professor Plum Wine.'' A sake flight, ''The Orient Express.'' ''Buffalo Wings of the Maltese Falcon.'' You get the idea.


    But on the back page were two riddles, a 10-square sudoku puzzle, and two incomplete sentences with numbers under the blank spaces. The vowels were filled in.


    _e__, A_ A__ _a_e, __e _o__ou_e _ai_.


    A_a__o_ A__ _o_e _e __o E__e_ _e_e.


    "I need a pencil," Alex said.


    "We all do," added Faerie.


    I stood up. "I''ll ask the bar. Be right back."


    I walked over and made eyes with the bartender, a handsome guy with red hair. His name tag read Peter.


    "Hi," I said. "Are there pencils we can use?"


    He handed me several and said, "Can I get you anything else?"


    "Yeah, ''In Cold Blood,'' please." It was a strawberry daiquiri.


    "Of course. Can I see your ID?"


    I tried not to hold my breath while he examined it, and then me, and then it again several times. He handed it back to me with a wink and said, "Coming right up."


    My heart jumped in my chest. "So you work with the Nonchalant?"


    "I work here at the Hippodrome," he answered.


    "Nonchalant own the Hippodrome?"


    "No. They rent the space every couple months."


    "So, who else works here?" I asked.


    "The manager, Annie." Peter pointed at a stern woman standing in a corner with her arms crossed. "Benny the bouncer," he pointed at a heavy-set man near the door. "And Oliver the bar bitch," he pointed at a young man opposite the dance floor with a wild black mohawk and razor-sharp cheekbones. His nails were painted blood red with matching lipstick. I was hypnotized at once. I almost walked over to him, but then I remembered what I was doing. So instead, I paid my tab and walked back to the table.


    Alex furrowed his brow at the drink in my hand. "How old are you again?"


    I sipped my frozen Capote pun. "I work in a check cashing store, remember? Well, sometimes people leave their IDs. We got a box full of ''em. So I went through that box and found someone who looks like me."


    "What!?" Deon exclaimed. "Lemme see this." I handed it to him.


    Deon screamed and laughed. "It says you''re thirty-one!"


    "Show me that," Faerie and Alex leaned in to inspect it.


    "He looks nothing like you," Alex decided.


    "He''s got brown eyes. A blind person could see your eyes are blue," Faerie added.


    "It doesn''t matter," I told them. "My money is green, and men buy me drinks. So long as it''s a real ID, bars are happy to look the other way."


    "Fucking white boys," Deon concluded. "No way I could get away with that. Officer Sexy outside would arrest my black ass."


    I distributed the pencils and said, "I wouldn''t worry about Officers Sexy or Lea DeLaria. They''re performers."


    "How do you know?" Alex interrogated.


    "I didn''t see a paddywagon, did you? And neither of them were carrying. Has anybody figured out the riddles on the back page?"


    "One," Faerie answered. "What begins in time and ends in debt? The letter T."


    "Nice," I made a note.


    "Next riddle," Faerie continued. "''Turn me on my side, and I am everything. Cut me in half and I am nothing. What am I?''"


    No one answered.


    Deon said aloud what most of us were thinking, "We should beat the crowd for clues. Someone''s figured it out, for sure."


    "Y''all go mingle," Alex said. "I''ll stay and watch our stuff."


    The rest of us ventured into the small crowd. Faerie and Deon stayed together, but I walked directly toward Oliver.


    He was collecting empty glasses from around the room, moving at a rhythmic pace, while the band covered "Daydream in Blue" by I Monster.


    "Hi," I said with a smile. "I''m Bastian."


    "Oliver," he answered warmly.


    Our eyes locked. I was transfixed but tried to act normal. "My friends and I are trying to figure out these riddles on the back page, and we''re stuck on the second one."


    He sighed wistfully. "Can''t help you. This is the second time I''ve worked one of these events. So giving you the answers would be cheating."


    "Bummer. Here I was hoping you and I could figure this out together," I lamented with puppy dog eyes.


    "It must suck to not get what you were hoping for," he teased.


    "It does suck. You''d think I''d be used to it by now," I said and stepped closer.


    "Oh, is your life super hard?" He mocked, leaning toward me.


    "Not right now, it isn''t." I licked my lips. "But the night is young."


    Oliver blushed and bit his lip. "I should get back to work."


    "Can you give me a clue, at least?"


    "For what?"


    "The riddle, of course. What were you thinking?"


    Oliver smirked and looked away dramatically. "It''s a number," he said finally.


    "Yeah, I''d love to get your number," I answered earnestly.


    He laughed. "No, dummy. That''s your clue. It''s a number. Figure it out."


    Oliver turned and walked away, glancing back with a wink. I smiled, watching him work for a second before I noticed Alice leading Nathan and August to our table. I hurried over to hug them both hello.


    Alex gave a friendly, seated wave.


    "The answer to the second riddle is 8. Oliver told me," I told them, as I waved to him from across the room.


    "He''s cute!" August exclaimed. "Dibs."


    "I saw him first."


    "Did you kiss?"


    "No. But we had a moment."


    "First kiss to dibs."


    "Ugh, you are the worst. Fine."


    "And we''re off to the races."


    Alex, meanwhile, had been focusing on the clues. "So 8 corresponds to T." He held up his menu to show us, "This is what we''ve got so far."


    _e__, At A__ _ate, t_e _o__ou_e _ai_.


    A_a__o_ A__ _o_e _e __o E_te_ _e_e.


    "That doesn''t help much," I admitted.


    Nathan said, "We should try and find Humdrum''s undercover operative."


    "And I have a sexy barman to meet," August made a face at me and walked off in Oliver''s direction.


    "Yeah, shoot your shot, asshole," I said.


    They walked off to meet people, leaving me and Alex sitting at the table.


    "I should call Jude," I said. "He''s about to be late."


    Jude answered on the second ring, sounding out of breath. Hills in San Francisco can be brutal if you''re not used to them. "Hey. I was¡­ delayed, but I''m walking there now... Just a few minutes."


    "Okay, but hurry. It''s about to start. Remember the password?"


    "Jejune."


    "Great. See you when you get here." I hung up the phone.


    "What are his chances, ya think?" Alex asked, watching August and Oliver flirt on the opposite side of the bar. I followed his gaze and saw they were hitting it off.


    I frowned. "I dunno. 50-50, I guess. We''ll see. What about you and Faerie? You were so cute together."


    He shrugged and looked down. "We''d been at odds for a while, but we got into a big fight after leaving Windemere. We''re better as friends, I think."


    "Okay," I said. "If you think it''s best, so do I."


    Alex looked at me pensively. "How do you date so many people?"


    "Shit. You make it sound like I have a revolving door."


    "You kind of do."


    I sighed. "C''mon, man. I dunno. I try to enjoy moments and people for what they are and who they are. Not what I want them to be. And since moments are fleeting, so too, are the men in my life."


    Alex shook his head. "I''m not like that. I never even dated anyone before Faerie."


    "Really? You''re so mature and shit. I thought everybody had more experience than me."


    Alex laughed. "Not this guy. Upstate New York isn''t exactly the most trans-friendly locale. I flew out here so I could be me. Faerie and I met at Lark Inn, and it''s been us against the world ever since. I don''t think we''re meant to be together, but I''m afraid to be alone, you know?"


    I was silent for a second, then I reached over to hold his hand. "You''re not alone."


    A shy smile broke his face. He squeezed my hand and then pulled his back.


    I wondered if I was too forward.


    "I was thinking about the Killer Nachos," Alex said. "You want some?"


    "Always. I''ll watch our stuff."


    "Cool. Back in a bit," Alex got up and walked to the bar.


    August and Oliver were still flirting, so I distracted myself by solving the sudoku puzzle. When I finished and looked up again, Oliver had gone back to work, and August was mingling next to Nathan.


    Then Reverend Wu stepped on stage, wearing the same colorful stole from chapter two, but this time with black pants and a white blouse.


    "Welcome." Her voice rang clear through the sound system. "And thank you for shining your light with us here tonight. It warms my heart to see so many new faces in our congregation. Tonight, your journey will bring you to the very doors of Elsewhere and Eve Herself! I know you''re all eager to meet her. She''s close now. To help you on your path to Eve, I''ve asked the band to play a special song for you all this evening. Listen closely. You might find a clue you didn''t know you were looking for. Please join me in a round of applause for the wonderful band."


    We applauded enthusiastically as then the drums and guitar began. Reverend Wu stepped backstage, and the band played Jefferson Airplane''s "White Rabbit."


    I listened intently to the lyrics and watched as Faerie, Deon, August, Nathan, and several others in the crowd moved toward Alice by the door. A small crowd gathered around her.


    But as I watched the crowd move, something else caught my eye. A painting on the far wall. It was abstract, with heavy brush strokes of gold and royal blues; an image of a rose bush in a field; and at the base of the bush, in the bottom corner, was a white rabbit.


    Alex came back with the nachos.


    "Thanks," I said, grabbing a bite. "Be right back," and ran over to the painting. Nothing unusual. I moved the painting to look behind it and found another clue: a small sticker of a caterpillar smoking from a hookah. The smoke read, "Call row 8."


    I wondered for a moment. The sudoku puzzle! Looking at my menu and I saw the first three numbers of row 8 were 415. San Francisco''s area code!


    I called and got an automated message. It sounded like Alice''s bubbly voice.


    "You chased the rabbit. Well done. Your reward is another clue. Four equals L."


    The automated voice message ended at the same time Jude walked through the door, looking disheveled and distressed. I ran over to meet him at the door.


    "Thanks, Alice," I said. "He''s my brother. I''ll take it from here."


    She was fielding questions from a small crowd and looked grateful for the assist.


    I walked Jude to our table and asked, "What took you? The party''s started."


    Jude looked like he was fighting back tears. He said, "They gave me a fine. I jumped on the back of the bus, but some cops got on and asked me for proof I paid, but I didn''t have it. They made me get off the bus and answer a bunch of questions, and they gave me a fine. I don''t have money for food. How am I supposed to pay $150 when I can''t even afford a bus ticket?"


    I grabbed him by the shoulders and said, "You''re not. Give it to me. I''ll take care of it." He did, and I put it in my pocket.


    "Such horseshit," I cursed San Francisco. "This fucking city has its priorities upside down. Do you know San Francisco loses money on fare enforcement?"


    "Huh?"


    "Yeah. The city pays fare enforcers millions of dollars every year to harass people, but ultimately they don''t generate enough money in fines to pay for the enforcement program. So San Francisco is effectively burning money into a program that punishes poor people for being poor while turning the city into a police state."


    Jude shrugged and said, "Someone has to pay to keep it running."


    "Yeah, of course, but the city could pay for public transit any number of ways. It''s a public utility for chrissake. Billionaires benefit from society, so you''d think they''d want to ensure it''s running smoothly. Not only because it''s the right thing to do; it''s good business. You want your employees to arrive at work on time. You want your customers to arrive freely without being hassled by tax collectors. This whole damn city is full of rich pricks sitting atop beautiful skyscrapers while the rest of us fight over crumbs they deign to toss over their balconies."Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.


    Jude looked around and marveled at the opulence we stood in. "You say that, but the room we''re currently in is¡­ beautiful."


    "Yeah, that''s San Francisco for you," I said. "Just try to not step on human feces once you''re out on the sidewalk."


    "Are you drunk?"


    "No! Barely. I had one drink."


    "You sound like you''re about to lead a French-style revolution."


    "Don''t tempt me. Besides, we''re busy tonight. C''mon and meet my friends."


    "There are a lot of people here," Jude said hesitantly.


    "Don''t worry. They''re going to love you."


    I led Jude to our table and introduced him.


    Everyone had returned to share notes and rumors. Faerie and Nathan were sitting at opposite ends of the table and seemed to be ignoring each other. Jude sat next to Faerie, and I noticed the two locking eyes.


    Nathan shared the clue from Alice, 3 = D. I told them what I''d discovered behind the rabbit painting, and we modified the sentences accordingly.


    _ell, At A__ _ate, t_e Do__ou_e _aid.


    A_a_do_ All _o_e _e __o E_te_ _e_e.


    "I still have no idea what this is supposed to say," said Faerie.


    Deon rejoined, "Me neither."


    "Well, that can''t be it, right? There''s got to be more," said August.


    "Did anybody see a chessboard?" I asked. "The song mentions one."


    Everybody shook their heads, and Faerie said, "I didn''t see any."


    Deon added, "Not unless you count the floor." He was looking at the black and white marble dance floor.


    I looked at it slack-jawed for a second before it dawned on me.


    "Deon, you''re a genius," I shouted and jumped out of my seat, running to the dance floor. Several people were dancing to a soulful hard rock cover of Leonard Cohen''s "The Future," complicating my search.


    Chess boards are 8 by 8 squares. In setup, the White Knights can start the game in four possible squares.


    I gently elbowed my way through the crowd, searching the ground for the right square. Found it! A strip of white tape covering a white tile. I lifted the tape. On the marble floor, someone had sharpied, "S = 1 & M = 2"


    Suddenly a scream rang out near the entrance. The band stopped playing as four men dressed in Nonchalant robes were forcibly dragging Officers Sexy and Lea DeLaria toward the stage. No one else did anything, assuming it was part of the show.


    It looked to me like Lea DeLaria could have taken them all in a fight, but the cultists had knives, so no one was resisting. The officers'' billie clubs had been confiscated. Officer Sexy was tossed onstage while Lea DeLaria was forced into a chair to watch. Reverend Wu was center stage. The band had cleared off during the commotion.


    That''s when the first unbelievable thing happened. Officer Sexy put up a show of resistance, and Reverend Wu, who looked older than fifty, certifiably whooped his ass. It was masterful. Wu must have been some kind of martial arts expert because, in a matter of seconds, she artfully reduced a man (at least) three times her weight to the ground, tapping for mercy.


    Wu pulled out a knife from behind her waist and held it to Officer Sexy''s throat. "It seems we have some unexpected - and uninvited, guests. Humdrum operatives have infiltrated our sacred celebration! We thought our security would protect us from Humdrum interference, but like the Trojan Horse, they snuck in right under our noses!


    "I know there are more Humdrum spies here tonight. You have one minute to reveal yourselves, or I kill this man!"


    Everyone in the room shifted uncomfortably. Presumably, we were all sent here by the Humdrum Institute. We looked at one another across the table. Were we supposed to confess?


    Lea DeLaria cried out, "Please, this is all a big misunderstanding. They offered us cash to deliver a message, but the Humdrum spy never arrived, I swear!"


    "How convenient," mocked Reverend Wu. "And what was this message you were supposed to convey?"


    "Find the door to Elsewhere. Inform the Institute of its location."


    In an instant, Wu''s face conveyed fury and terror. "So, Humdrum wants to invade Elsewhere, too. It''s not enough they''ve bought the government. It''s not enough they brainwash people and turn them into living zombies. Now they want to destroy paradise itself! Well, I won''t let that happen.


    "Alice, lock the doors. If the spy won''t reveal themselves, we have no choice. No one leaves this room tonight, starting with him." Wu pulled Officer Sexy''s hair threateningly and raised the knife to kill him.


    Then the lights went out. A deafening bang filled the darkness, and when the lights came back on, Reverend Wu was dead in a puddle of blood, slowly spreading across the stage.


    I looked around the room for a shooter, but everything seemed in order. Alice still manned the door. Bennie, Annie, and Peter were all at their stations. The four cultists were all seemingly dumbstruck at the sight of their leader''s dead body. I had a working theory but nothing concrete yet.


    Lea DeLaria wasted no time, surprising her assailants and cuffing them to the chair they had forced her into. Officer Sexy jumped in to help, and the four cultists were quickly subdued.


    Lea DeLaria shouted so everyone in the room could hear her. "This is now a crime scene. My name is Detective Dupin. This is my partner Detective Lockhart." I made a mental note to change their names going forward.


    Detective Lockhart checked Reverend Wu for a pulse, shaking his head to Dupin. Then Lockhart checked the body for clues and found a key, holding it up for Dupin and everyone else to see.


    Detective Dupin addressed the crowd, "I have to ask you all to remain here until the killer is identified. Since Wu threatened everyone in this room before she was killed, everyone had a motive and is therefore suspect.


    "As for these four," Dupid kicked the shoe of one of the cultists handcuffed to a chair, "Is there a storage closet or somewhere we can hold them?"


    Annie the bar manager spoke up. She sounded scared but in control. "Over here," she walked across the dance floor to open a door not far from the bar. It looked like a liquor pantry, with beer kegs on the ground and bottles on wooden shelves along the wall. "You can keep them in here, and I''ll bolt the door," she said to the detectives.


    Once the cultists were locked away, Detective Lockhart spoke to the crowd of suspects and witnesses.


    "Seeing as the Nonchalant were willing to murder everyone here, and I owe my life directly to someone''s fast action, I''m not inclined to press the case of Wu''s death any further than needs be."


    Detective Dupin chastised Lockhart, "A woman is dead, and it''s our job to find out who pulled the trigger! Regardless the circumstances."


    Lockhart answered, "Then you solve that case. I''m more interested in finding whatever this unlocks." He held up the key found on Hu''s body. There was a symbol on the base of the key.


    Deon shouted and pulled Faerie forward. "We know that! One of the cultists pointed it out to us. Over here!"


    Deon led us all to a locked cabinet near the back of the room, in a dark corner behind the bar. Sure enough, the symbol on the cabinet lock was the same as the base of the key. Detective Lockhart inserted the key, turned it, and opened the cabinet.


    It seemed to hold nothing unusual. Books and binders and small boxes and such. But Faerie noticed it. Alice in Wonderland. She pulled it off the shelf, opened it, and found our next clue.


    The book was a lockbox disguised as a children''s novel. The opened lockbox revealed a riddle and sixteen lettered dials.


    Faerie read the riddle aloud for the audience. "What did the dormouse say?"


    "Feed your head!" someone shouted.


    Faerie changed the dials to input that sentence. "It doesn''t work! ''Feed your head'' has only twelve characters."


    The crowd reacted with groans and murmurs.


    I remembered the clues from the dancefloor and put them into the sentences. That gave me enough information to guess at several letters, filling each in accordingly.


    _ell, At A__ _ate, t_e Do_mouse Said.


    A_a_do_ All _o_e _e __o E_te_ _e_e.


    The question mentioned the dormouse, so I filled in the R and H space as well.


    _ell, At A__ Rate, the Dormouse Said.


    A_a_do_ All Ho_e _e _ho E_ter _ere.


    Both sentences were coming into shape. Having read Divine Comedy (in middle school while the other kids were playing foursquare), I could fill in the remaining blanks.


    "Well, at any rate!" I shouted, rushing to Deon and Faerie to show them.


    "Ah!" Faerie exclaimed and laughed and dialed the letters into the lockbox. It clicked dramatically. She opened the lid to reveal a red button. Apprehensively, she pressed it.


    A hiss of air released nearby, scaring many of us, as a section of the wall slid sideways, revealing a secret staircase to an underground level.


    Detective Lockhart stepped forward and asked Annie, "What''s down there?"


    Annie spoke up so everyone could hear her, "It used to be a brothel. Then it was a speakeasy. Now it''s our main dance floor. There''s no bar downstairs, so if anyone is hungry or thirsty, or needs to use the bathroom, now would be the time. Let''s all reconvene in 10 minutes and go down together, yeah? In the meantime, I''ll share a few stories from the Hippodrome''s colorful past."


    A few people wandered off to the bar or bathroom or wherever.


    Annie continued, "They called the street outside ''Terrific Street,'' and it was once a vacation destination of sorts for rich folks ''slumming it-''"


    My phone started ringing, so I stepped away to answer in relative privacy.


    My mother was on the other line. She sounded lucid. Her voice was gravely serious. "Bastian, I have to tell you something, and I need you to hear me out, okay?"


    Already I had a sinking feeling. "Okay¡­"


    "My bank card is missing, and today a purchase was made at a game store in San Francisco for $50. Jude stole my card before he left and used it to buy video games!"


    "Wow! Did you cancel the card?"


    "Of course, I canceled the card! That''s not the point. He crossed state lines and committed fraud! That''s a felony! He''s going to jail for this! For a long fucking time!"


    "Mom, calm down. I know this is upsetting but let''s keep it in perspective. We''re talking about $50 here. Just call Jude and scream at him until you feel better."


    "He needs to learn! You need to tell me where he is so the police can collect him."


    Something primal in me switched on. I became ice-cold and razor-sharp, the cruelest side of myself. My voice was calm and clear, but the effect was unmistakable. "You honestly thought I was going to help you send my little brother to prison? Over $50? You''re fucking high. Jude is my brother. I protect him from you. Go to Hell."


    I hung up. My heart was pounding in my chest. I looked around for Jude. He and Faerie were standing close together, looking carefree and listening to Annie regale them with stories.


    I took several slow breaths to try and calm myself. My phone rang again.


    "Yes?" I answered.


    "Now you listen to me," Tom''s voice growled threateningly. He thought to bully me into going along with it. Of course, Tom was behind this. I hung up again.


    I steadied myself. The phone rang again. This time instead of angry and threatening, Tom sounded victimized. "Why are you hanging up on me?" So tragic.


    "Because you''re a douchebag." I hung up again. The phone rang again. This time I let Tom finish what he wanted to say.


    "You''re a faggoty little bitch, you know that!?! If you were here, I''d beat the living shit out of you, you smug piece of shit! You''re disgusting! A sick fucking pervert! And you''re gonna burn in Hell! Fuck you! FAGGOT!" This time he hung up.


    I stared out into space for a few seconds. Then straightened my tie and flattened my shirt, and I wandered back to the crowd.


    Annie was finishing her story. "-the tunnels were also used to kidnap people and smuggle them onto ships, where they''d be forced into slavery or the French Foreign Legion. Most never made it back. Alright, that''s my story, folks. Is everyone ready? Detectives, you wanna lead us down?"


    Lockhart stepped through the threshold and down the stairs. Dupin and the rest of us followed.


    The downstairs room was massive. Cobalt ropes hung from the high ceiling. Disco balls, lasers, smoke machines, and blacklight decorations covered the space. The back wall was covered in full-length mirror panels. ''Twilight Zone'' by Golden Earring blasted out the sound system.


    Then the next unbelievable thing happened. Dozens of people came running downstairs, parting the crowd and taking over the dancefloor.


    They organized themselves, and when the beat dropped, they broke into a synchronized dance routine that left the rest of us dumbstruck. Several dancers climbed the cobalt ropes to twirl and swing in unison. They finished with incredible acrobatic feats and flips. We applauded until my arms hurt. Then the dancers ran to pull us forward, so we were all dancing together.


    Reverend Wu''s voice rang out through the speaker system ominously. "The next step will require energy from all of you. Dancing is the key to opening the door. You have thirty minutes. Dance! Eve, to you, we offer this prayer!"


    The reverend''s voice faded, and a timer high on the wall turned on, counting down from 30 minutes. The music volume turned back up. It was clear what we were supposed to do, so all we got to it.


    I closed my eyes and let the music take me. All my anxieties faded, and for one fleeting moment, I forgot myself in the music.


    When I opened my eyes again, I saw Jude and Faerie kissing. My jaw dropped. A dozen thoughts and feelings flooded my mind at once. I was happy for Jude but also jealous because I had complex feelings for Faerie. I let those feelings go and instead thought of Alex.


    I found him standing against the wall, looking morose.


    I walked over to him and said, "Hey."


    Alex crossed his arms and smiled sadly when he saw me. "Hey, don''t worry about me. You should dance. Looked like you were having fun."


    "Nah. I mean, I was, but now I''m out of breath." I collapsed on the wall next to him. "You don''t wanna dance?"


    "I''m not a dancer."


    "Everyone is a dancer," I said. "It''s primal. Just close your eyes and move."


    "I don''t want to," he answered flatly.


    That shut me down for a minute. Finally, I said, "I get it. A crowd of people isn''t your scene. If you could be anywhere right now, where would you be?"


    He turned and made a face at me, laughing softly. Finally, he answered, "My dad owns a horse ranch outside Buffalo. Growing up, my chore was to feed the horses and brush them. I saw one give birth. My dad let me name the foal. Tabitha. Tabby. She''s massive now. I was the first one to ride her. She won''t let anybody ride her but me. If I could be anywhere, I''d be with her right now."


    A genuine smile broke his melancholy. He made so much more sense to me now.


    "My sister loved horses," I told him. "She would have liked you."


    He turned to me again, his expression inscrutable. "Thanks. You''re a good guy," he said so sincerely it made me uncomfortable. I thought of Rufio and how I cheated on him. I thought of Jude and how I abandoned him to the whims of violent narcissists.


    "Sometimes," I said. "I try to be."


    He looked ready to argue the point, but Reverend Wu''s voice rang out over the speakers. "The door is nearly open. More dancing is required! Vigorous dancing will open the door! Everyone now!"


    A remix of David Bowie''s greatest hits threaded into "Magic Dance" was the tune of choice, and that proved too much for Alex. I practically dragged him to the center of the dance floor, but he relented.


    At first, he looked anxious, but I held his hand and danced with him until he caught the beat. After a minute, he was dancing on his own, enjoying the moment.


    But moments are fleeting. 30 of them must have passed because the music went silent, and Reverend Wu''s voice came back over the system.


    "Well done! Look, the door is opening! Go to her!"


    One of the mirror panels that covered the far wall slid back and to the side, revealing a narrow secret room! We all rushed in. It was cramped, but everyone fit.


    The real back wall was made of brick and concrete, where an opening had been boarded shut. The underground smuggling tunnel Annie had mentioned?


    "Hey, Bastian, come look at this," Deon shouted at the opposite end of the room. I went to see him holding another lockbox with dials on the front. This box was longer than the first. I knew what had to be done, changing the dials to read ABANDON ALL HOPE YE WHO ENTER HERE. A mechanism clicked in response, and I opened the lid. Inside was a crowbar.


    I gave the crowbar to Deon. "You wanna do the honors?"


    His eyes lit up and sparkled with glee, taking the crowbar in his hands. "Yessir, very much."


    Deon ran across the room to the boarded door and got to it, ripping and smashing every piece of wood in his way. It didn''t take long, and when the deed was done, he stood back to wipe the sweat from his brow and admire his work. The ground was a mess of splinters, but the doorway was clean and clear. We all gave Deon a round of applause and then moved toward the doorway.


    But Alice came walking out of the pitch-black tunnel first, scaring the crap out of most of us. Deon was standing closest to the doorway and had the most dramatic reaction, screaming like he''d seen a ghost and running behind the rest of us.


    "Congratulations, all of you," Alice laughed. "You''ve made it. Come step through the door. I have to ask that you go in groups of no more than 8 people at a time. The tunnel is small and old. When you''re ready, I''ll send the first team in."


    "We''re ready!" August cried out and grabbed Nathan and Deon. Alex, Faerie, Jude, and I stepped forward as well. "There''s seven of us. We''re ready."


    Alice smiled widely. "Excellent. Please step forward."


    August marched in confidently, and the rest of us followed with more or less confidence.


    We stepped through the doorway and found a large rectangular room built of concrete. At the end of the room was a smaller tunnel, and over the tunnel, someone had carved the words, ''Abandon All Hope Ye Who Enter Here.''


    "Anybody else getting the sense this might be a bad idea?" Deon asked.


    "Don''t be a scaredy cat," Faerie teased. "It''s just a dark and scary tunnel to Hell. What could go wrong?"


    As she said it, a ball of fire burst into light, floating midair in the tunnel doorway, spooking the lot of us. We stepped toward it cautiously, August in the lead.


    Deon objected, "I''m putting my foot down. Do not touch the floating fire thing."


    August brought his hand to it and then slowly through it.


    Deon threw his hands and scoffed.


    "It''s not real fire," said August. "It has no heat or mass. It''s got to be some kind of illusion."


    "Smoke machines and laser projectors?" Faerie asked.


    "Nathan said, "This is way too sophisticated. Look at the detail. And where are the projectors?"


    We looked around but only saw concrete walls.


    "Well, it''s not magic," Alex said simply. "So it has to be some kind of technology. More mirrors, maybe?" He stepped forward and moved his hands around and through the floating fireball. The image wasn''t distorted or darkened at all.


    Deon had reached his limit. "Okay. Nope. Sorry. I''m out. I seen this movie. No, thank you. Good luck, white folk. See y''all at home." He turned to leave the way we had come, but the door was gone. Somehow while we were watching the floating light, the doorway had sealed itself. The only thing remaining was a solid wall of concrete. We were trapped with no way back.


    Deon started screaming and banging his hands against the wall, to no avail. Faerie rushed forward to try and calm him down. I was too dumbfounded to do anything but blink, mouth agape at the wall. It was impossible. We should have heard something. It couldn''t be possible, but it happened.


    We all had to touch the wall for ourselves to confirm it. Deon was trembling but had otherwise calmed. We silently processed our situation.


    Finally, I walked to the middle of the narrow dark room. "Okay. A lot of really weird shit has happened tonight, and I can''t explain most of it. But we''re underground, and there''s only one way forward. Sorry to be ''that white guy,'' but we literally can''t turn back now. I suggest we continue forward."


    "No way," said Deon. "I never shoulda come down in this dark tunnel. I know better. Now y''all finna get me killed or worse. And what''s it doing now?"


    The fireball was moving from us and down the tunnel, taking the light with it.


    "I don''t want to get left here in the dark, do you?" I said, following the light.


    Everyone hurried after it into the tunnel, which went on for what I assumed were several city blocks. I wondered how many people had been kidnapped and carried away forever down these dark, musty tunnels.


    We followed the light to an old metal door with a circular wheel in the middle to open and lock it. The light disappeared into the door, leaving us in near darkness. Most of us were using our phones as flashlights. We all conferred silently through an exchange of glances and nods. August turned the wheel and pulled open the door.


    Inside was more of the same tunnel, except this tunnel had identical doors at opposite ends. In the center, the same glowing ball of fire floated midair. To me, it seemed a terrible place to be trapped. But what else were we supposed to do? Behind was sealed shut. The only way was forward. We stepped through the door, and as soon as the last of us crossed the threshold, the door swung shut, clanging loudly. The fire light snuffed itself out, returning us to darkness. Everyone screamed when the door shut, terrified, but soon, fear gave way to wonder.


    The walls somehow disappeared, and we weren''t in a dark and scary tunnel anymore, but instead a wild field of tall grass. Stars twinkled overhead in a sky, so clear I could make out the milky way. It reminded me of Montana skies.


    Standing in front of us was Alice, radiant.


    "How are you here?" I asked first, stupefied.


    Nathan followed up, "You were behind us. Who''s watching the others?"


    Alice''s laugh was unlike any I''d heard before. It was girlish and cute, yet there were tones of sadness and age I wasn''t expecting. It occurred to me that Alice wasn''t very young at all. Or perhaps she was. Her face was ageless, unblemished, but not youthful. There was an edge to her I hadn''t noticed before.


    "Who are you?" I asked plainly.


    "Who in the world am I? Ah, that''s the great puzzle," Alice answered.


    "Very funny," said Nathan sarcastically. "Answer the question. How are you here?"


    "I''m not here. I''ve never been here. That you can see me is due to the help of my friends, but I''m not here."


    "You won''t mind if I test that claim," August walked forward to touch her shoulder. Like the ball of fire, his hand went through her as if she wasn''t even there. Her appearance remained unblemished.


    August jumped back, and we all panicked a little, trying to get away, but we were trapped. Our surroundings appeared as a dew-covered field of lush green grass, but it was an illusion. The walls of the tunnel were still real. There was nowhere to run.


    "Please, calm yourselves," Alice begged. "None of this is real. It can''t hurt you."


    That had close to the desired effect. We all stared at her in heavy silence.


    Faerie spoke first, "Are you Eve?"


    Alice smiled again and nodded imperceptibly.


    "If you''re not here, where are you?" Faerie continued.


    "Elsewhere. That''s not why I brought you here."


    "We''re here for a reason?"


    "Yes. I had to warn you. There''s still time."


    "Time for what?"


    "To save your planet! A flood is coming, worse than the last great flood."


    "How do we stop it?" Faerie asked.


    "Unite the people. Dark times are coming, and you must be ready."


    "And how do we do that?"


    "You must return anger with forgiveness, fear with courage, and hate with love. The times will test you. The people will hate and fear you. You must love them and welcome them because, without them, you will all lose everything."


    Faerie rolled her eyes, "It''s a little hard to turn the other cheek if you''re dead. Sorry, I''m digging the ''come-together'' vibes, but let''s talk facts for a second. They murder people like me for sport. And you''re telling me to love and welcome them? No, thank you, blondie. Not buying it. I love the special effects, though. Not sure how you installed projectors and hid them in concrete, but I am thoroughly impressed."


    Eve smiled sadly. "Only together can you hope to overcome this challenge. Unite the people. Save yourselves." She faded into dust, carried away on an impossible breeze. And when she was gone, the illusion faded with her, and we found ourselves back in the dark and scary tunnel with big metal doors at both ends.


    "Well, that''s one way to end a conversation," Faerie quipped.


    August marched forward and opened the door. The tunnel continued on the other side. A light could be seen at the end. We all raced toward it and out of the insane darkness. But outside the darkness, things made even less sense.


    Somehow without ever turning, we''d done a 180 to the same secret room behind the dance floor. I lost count of how many unbelievable things this made. To compound the strangeness of events, the entire room was empty. Neither Alice nor any of the other participants could be found.


    We went upstairs, and it was the same Hippodrome, except it was empty. Only Bennie, Annie, Peter, and Oliver remained, drinking at the bar. They cheered when we walked in.


    "You came back!" Peter shouted. "Everyone else is gone. Last call for alcohol!"


    I looked at the time. It was almost midnight. Somehow, hours had passed while we were down in that tunnel. I tried to make sense of what had just transpired and failed. Did that really happen? How? Was that the end?


    The others were taking it better than I, rushing forward and celebrating. Jude appeared next to me, bumping my elbow to get my attention.


    "What kinda party did you bring me to? This is fuckin'' nuts."


    I couldn''t think. My brain had short-circuited. When I came back online, I blurted out the first thought that came to me.


    "Did you steal Mom''s debit card and buy video games?"


    His neck and shoulder muscles tightened, confessing his guilt. That was his tell. It was how I always knew when Jude was lying.


    He just shrugged. "So what did Mom say?"


    "She said she was gonna press charges and send you to prison. She honestly thought I was going to help her do it. The fucking nerve. Tom put her up to it, naturally. He had some¡­ charming things to say."


    "Tom can eat shit in Hell. Yes. I bought a 3DS and Pokemon Platinum. When we get back to Perramont, you can play it. I don''t think Faerie is going to let me crash with her. I must''ve said or did something wrong because she was all hot one minute and then ice cold the next. I feel like I was being toyed with for someone else''s benefit, that Alex guy you''ve been spending all night with."


    "What? That''s crazy. I don''t even¡­ Well, shit, okay. I''m sorry that happened. Faerie''s kind of an asshole. And forget Mom. She''s hundreds of miles away. I don''t care that you stole the card. Fact, I''m glad. Being homeless gets boring. That 3DS was an excellent idea. Mom said the total came to $50. That''s a fantastic deal. Very frugal. Well done."


    He shrugged. "They were both used."


    I laughed at him. Even in theft, he tried to be considerate. "I will always have your back. I don''t care if you''re guilty. You''re my brother. You know that, right?"


    He nodded silently, trying to conceal his emotions, but I saw them.


    "Let''s go home. It''s late. Somehow." I looked up in time to see Oliver lean in to kiss August sweetly. Then Oliver noticed me watching them. Humiliated and crestfallen, I looked away immediately.


    I took a deep breath and tried to exhale my frustration and disappointment.


    "C''mon," I said to Jude. "Let''s get out of here." I waved goodbye to my fellow street urchins, "See y''all for dinner on Friday!"


    They looked unsure whether to stay or follow. I didn''t wait for them to decide and walked out the door and swiftly home. Jude struggled to keep up with my pace. We arrived at Perramont, and I promptly passed out.

 July 2009 - August & Oliver

    "Well, I loved it. Engaging. Scary. Well done," Dani said. Then she sat back and looked at me strangely. Something was on her mind.


    "What''s up?" I asked. "You''re sad about something."


    She tried to hide it, smiling. "I''m the therapist, remember? But there is something we have to talk about. You turn 21 next month, and you will age out of the program. You''re not being kicked out, but we have to make space for the next kid. You understand."


    "Yeah. I hadn''t forgotten. I know the deal. I''ll get back the rent I paid. That''s over two thousand now, right? Enough to find a place to rent. And once I''m 21, I can work at a nightclub, and I''ll make much better money."


    Dani smirked. "I don''t doubt it. And if you need help, you can call us. We''ll still be here for you."


    "But not you, specifically, right?"


    Dani winced. "Right. I''m sorry it has to be this way. Part of my job is letting you go."


    I nodded and looked around the room. My vision was blurring, but I was trying to memorize everything. The four desks cramped together. Stacks of folders of kids who needed help. The fan motor yelled down the halls. The walls were sunken in some places. Overhead, fluorescent lights and old white rectangles with mystery spots covered the ceiling. There were no computers. Dani brought her home laptop to work. When we met. Because I was her job. Not her friend.


    The carpet was orange and threadbare.


    "I understand. I know why it has to be this way. I''m just gonna miss you," my voice broke.


    Dani leaned forward and held my hand. "I''m going to miss you, too."


    She said some platitudes to try and comfort me, but she was comforting herself.


    When she finished, she asked me about Jude. It was our first meeting since his arrival.


    "He''s¡­ different? He''s the same, but he doesn''t act the same. When we were little, he used to make fun of me because I had no friends. And it hurt because it was true. He could make friends anywhere. We moved so many times, and it was always the same. He made friends right away. I made enemies. Bullies, mostly. I was this fae, weird kid. Somehow, the other kids knew what I was before I did. My family moved almost every year. New schools. New kids. But they always knew. So I learned how to deal with them.


    "There was this kid once. A scrawny punk. He bullied Jude, called him names. ''Blueberry,'' because Jude is husky and wore a blue sweater.


    "Anyway, when I noticed it happening, I asked Jude if it bothered him. He said it did. So the next day, as we got off the bus, the kid picked on Jude again, and I told him, ''That''s enough. Leave him alone.'' Of course, he beat his chest and insulted me. I just walked away.


    "There''s two ways to handle guys like that: ignore them or punch them in the face. Sometimes, ignoring them works. They get bored. That day, I ignored him because I didn''t give a damn what he said about me.


    "The following day, when we got off the bus, that putz fucked with my little brother one too many times, and I busted his face open. He was so surprised, this massive gash under his eye and blood running down his face.


    "Turns out he''d studied karate for several years, so he smartly bound my arms with my backpack and punched the back of my head a couple times before the bus driver pulled him off me and called 911. When the cop arrived and got the full story, he almost gave me a pat on the back. My mom gave me extra dessert that night.


    "I''m not a violent person. Teachers all knew me as a gentle book nerd, and the punk had a reputation as a delinquent fucktard, so I got 3 days detention. He almost got expelled and kept a wide distance from then on.


    "A similar thing happened at a different school in another state. My class was in a stage auditorium, and some dumbfuck had the bad idea to say something disparaging about my sister. So I waited until he was a good 20 meters away, sprinted at him, jumped off a chair, and drop-kicked him square in the chest. And no one fucked with me at that school ever again.


    "Sorry, I got off topic. Jude. Jude is nothing like that. He''s like a mouse. I''ve never seen him violent. It''s just not in him. He doesn''t get angry. He just sort of shrinks from conflict. He''s a gentle, friendly, funny person. And he comes alive when you look at him. He loves being around people.


    "But at the Hippodrome, he was shy and anxious. He''s quieter now. The other night, we were talking about Morgan, and all of a sudden, he shut down and shut me out. Something''s going on with him, but he won''t talk to me about it."


    "Don''t put too much pressure on yourself. Jude isn''t your responsibility."


    "He is, though. He''s my little brother. He''s all I have left."


    Dani thought for a moment. "What if you moved in together? With your cashback, you could pay the first month and deposit on a place. Jude could find a job and pitch in by the following month."


    "Yeah. I think that could work. I''ll bring it up tonight when I meet him."


    "What are you up to tonight?" Dani asked.


    "Alex, Deon, Faerie, and I are going to a board game store. Jude is supposed to meet us there. But first, me and the urchins are gonna meet up for dinner."


    Thai House Express, a family owned business on Castro Street. The portions were large and affordable. We ate family-style dishes of tom kha soup and appetizers of fried minced chicken, potatoes, and carrots, with a cucumber salad. For the entrees, we ate larb, crab pad thai, and a crispy pork belly on rice.


    I got a Thai iced tea with coconut milk. Alex opened a bottle of wine for the table. The server kindly forgot to ID any of us. Once we were all toasted, the conversation picked up.


    "What''s y''all''s Hogwarts house?" Deon asked everyone at the table.Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.


    Half-Blood Prince was about to release in theaters, and at the time, Harry Potter was a cultural touchstone.


    "Ravenclaw," answered Alex immediately.


    "Okay, no surprise there," Deon rejoined and looked at me pointedly.


    "Hufflepuff," I confessed to a shocked audience.


    "I figured you for a fellow Ravenclaw," said Alex.


    "No way. You''re both wrong," Deon demanded. "He''s clearly a Gryffindor. How are you a Hufflepuff?"


    "I''m miscellaneous and very good at finding things," I said to drunken laughter. "What about you?"


    "Slytherin," Deon preened. Alex looked mortified. "I love the dark, everything dark, and those flowy black robes? I wannem."


    "But they''re so bad!" I said.


    "No, they''re not! They''re ambitious. They want power. I relate to that. How ''bout you, Faerie?"


    "Harry Potter is overrated," she said with contempt.


    "Why you such a hater?" I ragged.


    "I''m not a hater! You just don''t get it. Maybe you never will. Maybe it was unfair of me to ever think you could. How could you understand how I feel? But is it so much to ask you to respect that I don''t like it?"


    I felt thoroughly chastised, and the three of us meekly answered no.


    Faerie seemed at once satisfied and remorseful. "Thank you. I was the last person you invited, and you should have warned me Nathan was going to be there. I feel like an afterthought with you guys, and it sucks."


    "I''m sorry, Faerie," I said.


    "Me too," Deon said. "This is bringin'' up- I been thinkin'' I''ll go home to South Carolina soon since I''m about to age out of the program."


    "Me too," I said. "Not the South Carolina part. Why do you wanna go back there? That''s like the Southiest state there is. It''s got South in the name. That''s like peak racism."


    "Yeah, but at least in the South, people are obvious about it, ya know? Like, there are streets I know not to go down, but I know where to avoid. Here, folks is just as racist, but they be everywhere hidin'' in plain sight. And there''s like no Black people here! They all got pushed out or pushed down. I feel what Faerie''s sayin'', ''cause I need my people. Much as I love y''all, I am drowning in caucasity."


    Deon finished and drank his Thai iced tea with an expression at once sympathetic and daring.


    Faerie said, "Right. I need to find my people."


    After a pause, Alex chimed in, "I''ll probably go back to New York when I age out. I miss my horse."


    The pause outlasted itself.


    "So I suppose this is the end of the urchins, then?" I asked rhetorically.


    "Not so fast!" Deon cut the gloom. "We''re not dead yet, and there''s still Totally Awesome! to go to. I wanna stay in touch with each one a you. Friends like y''all aren''t easy to find, and I don'' wanna lose any a you."


    Faerie and Deon paid the tab. Alex and I split the tip. Then we walked to the underground and took a train to West Portal, where the board game store, Totally Awesome! was located.


    It was in a quaint commercial area with single-story brick buildings and large glass windows. Totally Awesome! was in a spacious rectangular shop with creaky wood floors and geeky images covering every wall. Giant comic book pages had been blown up to cover every bare surface. Magazine covers and stickers covered the bookshelves, which had boxes and boxes of board games I''d never seen before. There were entire genres I didn''t know existed. Gaming tables were organized in the back of the room. "True Affection" by The Blow was playing overhead.


    The other urchins and I wandered the aisles looking at board games. There were playable copies of almost every game in the store and perhaps two dozen people playing one game or another.


    I asked Alex where to find the store owner, and he pointed at a well-built man with black hair. He was bent down, teaching someone to play a game. I walked up to introduce myself when I recognized him as Dante, one of my first one-night stands, handsome as ever, with a simple button shirt and slacks.


    He looked up to see me and took a second to remember me.


    "Hey! Uh... Bastian, wasn''t it?" Dante stood to greet me.


    I wanted to turn and run, but I faked enthusiasm and shook his hand. "Yeah, hi. This is your store? It''s amazing."


    Dante grinned. "Thanks, yeah, it is. How''s it going?"


    "Great. My friends brought me here," I indicated toward the other urchins, whispering among themselves. "I just came to say thanks for hosting this. I''ll leave you to it." I turned to leave, but Dante touched my wrist invitingly.


    "Wait," he said. "I''m teaching my friend here to play Magic: the Gathering. Wanna play? You can use one of my decks."


    "I don''t know how to play," I said, hoping he''d leave it at that.


    "That''s great! It''ll be a fair learning game. C''mon, take a seat."


    Reluctantly, I took a seat. Dante handed me a deck and explained the rules. I don''t like being explained things when I haven''t asked for an explanation. I resented Dante for ghosting me a year ago, and now he was explaining things to me.


    But I swallowed my irritation and listened to the rules. It turned out to be a lot of fun. I came back every week to play games and meet new people. Totally Awesome! would become my new hang-out spot.


    Jude didn''t show up that night. I called him to ask what had happened. He said he made a friend in the Tenderloin and decided to stay with them. At the time, I was just glad he made a friend and didn''t think much of it.


    The other urchins and I stayed until the store closed. On the way home, I got a text message from August inviting me to a drag show. Faerie didn''t like drag so I didn''t mention it to the others. They got off the train at Church station, and I kept going to Van Ness station, walking the rest of the way to Truck, a seedy dive bar in the SOMA.


    Truck was a single rectangular room with dark red lights and erotic images covering the walls. "I Can''t Decide" by Scissor Sisters was playing over the speakers. Three nearly naked men were dancing on the stage.


    I found August ordering a drink at the bar.


    "Make it two," I told the bartender, bumping my shoulder into August.


    "Hey, you came!" he said and embraced me.


    "Of course. I thought you were performing. Why aren''t you in face?"


    "No. We''re here to support Oliver. This is his first time performing at a venue."


    "Oh," I wasn''t sure how to feel or respond. I didn''t want to be bitter. "You two hit it off the other night. Congrats on your dibs kiss."


    "Yeah, he''s great. But listen, Oliver and I talked about it, and if you''re cool with it, we can all share. I mean, we''re adult men. It''s not like you and I haven''t fucked already, so what''s one more?"


    For some reason, that possibility had never occurred to me. August was my best friend. We had dated, and there was love between us but not romantic love. Our love was platonic and often competitive. This was uncharted terrain for us, and it took me a second to consider.


    "Yeah," I said triumphantly. "Why the Hell not? Sounds fun."


    Oliver was still backstage, so August and I found seats near the front of the stage and drank our whiskey gingers, flirting, daring each other with glances and threats.


    The lights and music changed. The hostess with the mostest, Suppositori Spelling, came onstage and welcomed everyone, explaining the rules and theme of the night and introducing the first queen, Diana Fire.


    August nudged me in the rib, whispering, "That''s Oliver."


    "La Grippe" by Squirrel Nut Zippers came on, and Oliver/Diana Fire stepped onstage, dressed as a plague doctor. She had a black top hat, a creepy bird mask, and a full-length leather coat that covered everything.


    Her arms and legs moved in a disturbing rhythm with the song, swaying and then stopping. When the words began, Di opened a latch on her mask, revealing her lips, which synched perfectly to the lyrics.


    At the end of each verse, she removed an article of clothing; first the gloves, then the coat, revealing a sexy nurse outfit; finally, the hat and mask came off, revealing a green wig and Joker make-up from the Dark Knight.


    Diana Fire spent the rest of the song dancing eerily and collecting money from adoring fans, myself included.


    When the show ended, Oliver came directly to us and kissed us both. We stayed for a bit, drinking and flirting, before walking to Windemere.


    It wasn''t my first threesome, but it was the best. Oliver was a bottomless bottom, so August and I took turns, and we got real inventive with it.


    We stayed the night and then over the weekend, watching TV, ordering pizza, and having sex. We all got to know each other and quickly became an item.


    August and Oliver were both in the drag scene and more outgoing than I. They brought me out to introduce me to their acquaintances and show me off. I was the quiet place they hid their secrets, and they were my adventures in the real world. They complemented each other in crowds, dancing among people, and I was their anchor. August was the steady pragmatist. Oliver was the social butterfly. I was the dreamer. Somehow, it worked.

 August 2009 - Happily Ever After

    For my 21st birthday, Jude and I moved into a one-bedroom apartment in the Bayview district. I paid the first month''s rent and deposit. Jude assured me he would get a job and chip in by September. I gave Jude the bedroom and took the living room for myself, hanging sheets for privacy.


    The following day, August and Oliver took me on a road trip. I''d always wanted a pet, and it had been impossible living in the Perramont. But for the first time in my life, I got to decide, and I wanted a ferret. The boys picked me up and drove me to Nevada. Ferrets are illegal to buy, sell, or own in California, so we had to sneak Loki in a box across the state line.


    That was what I named him. Loki. He was the most wonderful animal. He had a cage, but I rarely confined him to it. I don''t like caging animals in general, so he got to run around the house most of the time. Loki crawled into bed with me most nights. Whenever I took a shower he would come running, because he loved to play in the water. I bought him all sorts of toys and things to climb on. Loki was an incredibly healing influence on me. He loved me. I could tell. And that simple, trusting relationship helped me open my heart again.Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.


    August and Oliver were wonderful. They supported me and believed in me. Oliver slept over most nights because he didn''t like his roommate, and he loved Loki. August was always dating someone new, but he never forgot to make time for us.


    I got a new job at a nightclub in SOMA called the Golden Cow. Bar support, but it was still good money. Not great, but good.


    And that was my life. Two boyfriends, college classes, a job at a nightclub, a pet ferret, and my little brother living in the room over. For a moment, I had a happy ending.


    I even finished my book.


    Happily Ever After.

 October 2009 - Tandy

    You should probably skip my chapters from here on.


    You''ve got a happily ever after. Maybe it''s unsatisfying, but it''s good enough.


    And if you want a happy ending, you should take it while the getting is good, because this book doesn''t end at happily ever after. There is an untitled third act. You''re reading it. And it''s more like a letter. I''ll try to keep it brief.


    I''ve written you countless times, deleted nearly everything.


    There''s so much I wanted to tell you. I don''t know where to begin.


    I suppose I should begin with Tandy.


    To confess, I didn''t like Tandy very much at first. She was the reason Jude didn''t come to Totally Awesome! that first night and many nights after.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website.


    Jude fell for her hard and fast. Being with her was all he cared about.


    Tandy had fiery red hair and a personality to match. She was a force; clever, resourceful, and determined. I admired that. More than anything, she wanted to be free. Her parents stifled her, she told me; that''s why she ran away to San Francisco.


    Keep in mind Tandy was a teenage girl on the streets. She didn''t want a sugar daddy or anyone who thought to control her. I think they fell in love because Tandy was always in control, and Jude was happy to be included.


    I didn''t like that. I wanted Jude to make decisions for himself, get a job, and help me pay rent. That didn''t happen.


    Instead, we lived in the Bayview apartment for two months. Neither Jude nor Tandy found work, and I couldn''t afford rent forever on my own, so we moved out.


    Oliver and I moved in together to a place in West Portal not far from Totally Awesome!


    Jude and Tandy went back to Lark Inn and then on the streets.


    At some point, they started using shit Jude promised me he would never use.

 April 2011 - Castro Station

    Looking back, there were so many signs. But who could have imagined? These things aren''t supposed to happen.


    Jude needed me, and I wasn''t there. Worse, I gave up on him. I was angry and frustrated. He kept using increasingly dangerous drugs. When I told him to stop or slow down, he would go back to Tandy, and I wouldn''t hear from him again for days and weeks.


    One moment haunts me. I was on my way home from work, descending the stairs to the Castro Street MUNI Station as Jude walked up the stairs.


    I didn''t recognize him at first. Jude had been losing weight since arriving in San Francisco, but he looked skeletal climbing the steps. His face was sunken in. His hair was matted and oily. His eyes were wide and intense like windows to a dozen screaming mimis.


    I stopped and realized the terrible extent of Jude''s substance abuse. I still couldn''t recognize him. My bright, funny, friendly little brother was gone, and in his shoes was an irrational, insatiable hunger for self-destruction.


    "Jude, you look awful. What are you doing?"


    "You know," he whispered intensely. His eyes went somehow even wider as if an epiphany had just come to him.


    I stood feeling more and more uneasy. "Okay. Yeah, I guess I know what you''re doing. Jude, please, you gotta stop doing this to yourself."


    "I can think clearer when I''m on drugs. I know things. Things you''ve known," he said, like he was accusing me of something.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    I blinked. "I don''t know what you''re talking about. I don''t think you''re thinking as clearly as you think you''re thinking. Let''s get you down. Come home with me. We''ll get you fed and showered."


    "I''m not going with you. You''ve known this whole time. You knew what I was going to do! You know what I''m going to do!" He was shouting at me.


    I didn''t know. I thought I knew. Jude had been threatening suicide for so many years, and he had finally chosen a slow death. In my mind, I saw Jude''s face on a wall next to Jes''. Death by overdose. Tears started filling my eyes, and I fought back sobs.


    "Jude. Please. Stop."


    "You know!" he screamed. "You know! You know!"


    I didn''t know. I didn''t know what to say. I didn''t know what to do. I just started crying, and he just kept screaming, "You know!"


    Finally, he stopped screaming and walked up the stairs and away from me. He looked back with sadness and regret and accusation.


    I stepped aside to collapse on a bench and cry. Usually, I kept everything boxed up, but this moment broke me. I felt so alone. My sister, dead. My parents, useless at best. My older brother, a monster. And my younger brother, the living dead. My entire family, gone.


    I asked myself what Jude meant. What was I supposed to know? If only I were smarter. If only I were stronger, wiser, richer, better, anything but the person I am. I left him alone for too long. And what would happen to Jude? When would I get the call, saying they found his body outside somewhere with a needle in his arm?


    "Are you okay? Did your boyfriend break up with you?" said a voice.


    I looked up, surprised. Some guy in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, saw me crying on a plaza bench and thought this was the time to pick me up.


    "No, please," I raised my hand and looked down. "I just need a minute."


    "Sorry, it''s just I saw you sitting here crying, and you''re so beautiful. Whoever he is, he doesn''t deserve you. You know, you can come with me to my-"


    I got up and walked away, wiping my tears and boxing my emotions away.


    "Yeah, fuck you, too!" he shouted behind me. "You''re a piece of shit!"

 December 2011 - Oklahoma

    <div>


    Time passed. I remained self-absorbed and unaware, partying and studying. And all the while, my brother was disintegrating. I tell myself I tried. I tell myself it''s not my fault.


    He frustrated and embarrassed me. Countless times. I''m sorry, but it''s the truth. His behavior became increasingly erratic and irresponsible.


    Nathan told me Jude would pick himself up once he hit rock bottom. I didn''t know what else to do at that point. He refused to work, convinced that if he sat on the sidewalk and begged for change long enough, the government would give him SSI because of his back.


    I think he was carrying so much emotional weight he couldn''t carry anything else. He needed to be carried, but San Francisco was too expensive for me to carry us both. So I told him to get his shit together, and I focused on myself and my boyfriends.


    I was finishing my Associate''s Degree at CCSF, and it was time to apply to universities. I had good grades and a pretty interesting story, but most schools rejected me. I would eventually receive an acceptance letter from UC Davis.


    But before that happened, Tandy got pregnant.


    I was less than thrilled.


    Jude, Tandy, and I were in the living room. Oliver was at work. The sun was shining through the window, and Loki was dragging his favorite toy across the floor to hide in his secret space.


    I thought it was selfish and irresponsible to bring a child into the world under those conditions, and, to be candid, I suggested abortion. Tandy wouldn''t abort. The concept was morally repugnant to her. Her choice.


    I suggested adoption, but Tandy was determined. Tandy decided a baby would fix her and make her a better person. She romanticized a happy life, and for a time, intermittently, she had it.


    It was unfair to you to put that much responsibility on a baby. I wish I could have told you years ago; that none of this is your fault, and you deserved better, and it''s okay to be mad. I''m still mad.


    As fate would have it, your father''s father called for the first time since Morgan died. John. My father. He was overjoyed to hear the news, inviting Jude and Tandy out to Oklahoma. They''d have a home of their own, he said.


    Jude and Tandy took a Greyhound bus to Oklahoma the very next day. I saw them off and wished them luck. By that time, I''d set aside any misgivings toward Tandy. She was family now. I even grew to admire her a little.


    You were born in Oklahoma. Tandy''s parents drove down to meet you. They demanded Tandy give them custody of you immediately. Tandy told them to get bent. They told her she was disowned and disinherited.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    I came to visit that Christmas. You were so tiny, with a tuft of red hair. And such a happy baby. You never cried.


    It had been some fifteen years since I''d been in Oklahoma. I hadn''t seen my dad since Morgan''s funeral. She was always his favorite. John checked out after she died.


    He had found himself a replacement family, a wife, a daughter, and a son. I liked them all right away. Much more than I like my father. I don''t dislike him. I kind of ''nothing'' him, you know?


    Like, I used to hate him for abandoning us, for forgetting me. But as an adult, knowing him is different. I understand him better, having met his family. I don''t hate him because he''s a decent husband and father. Besides, he''s too pitiable to hate.


    That''s when I learned where I came from. My father''s story. His mother''s story. My Gramma Joy. One night we were outside looking at stars, and Gramma Joy told me her father was one of those Native American babies the government kidnapped and gave to white families. Her daddy was a Chocktaw, Chickasaw, Cherokee, Potawatomi, Southern Baptist Minister. Can you imagine? What a trip.


    Anyway, my Gramma Joy was born into this surreal and unfair world and was raped at a very young age. She thinks she initiated the act, but I don''t believe 8-year-olds have the agency to make those kinds of decisions.


    You''re probably appalled, and rightly so, but similar stories are all too common among Indigenous girls and women. It''s an extension of the war the United States has waged against Native Americans since Plymouth Rock. The genocide continues today, every day.


    Indigenous people aren''t viewed as people by the wider/Whiter society. In the eyes of a White man, Native Americans are all gone. They''re more comfortably regarded as cartoon mascots.


    Or wood elf flower children that inexplicably fall in love with White men.


    Or they''re "Mexicans."


    Or they''re myths posers tell people to sound deep or morally superior.


    "The Native Americans used to believe blah-blah-blah about blah-blah."


    Oh? What tribe? "Used to." Did they stop believing it, or were they wiped out? And if the latter, how do you claim to know their myths?


    Anyway, Joy was 12 when she got pregnant with my father, which, as you can imagine, was super embarrassing for the Southern Baptist Minister. Abortion was unthinkable, so Joy was given an ultimatum: she could get married immediately, so the baby wouldn''t be born a bastard, or she could go away for 9 months and come home with a brand new baby brother.


    Joy opted for marriage. Not surprisingly, any man who would marry a 12-year-old is a creep. He abused Joy and their children together for 8 years before Joy abandoned her family and drove to California.


    But before she left, she told young John that the man he thought was his father wasn''t his father.


    When he asked who his real father was, Joy said, "Get a pen and paper. I''ll give you a list of a hundred names. Take your pick."


    Then she abandoned him for California.


    As soon as John was old enough, he joined the Air Force, traveled the world, got stationed in California, and met Patsy.


    She was 30. He was 22. Their marriage lasted 8 years.


    When Patsy divorced John, she got full custody because he could never pay child support. Instead, he visited when it suited him, until Morgan died, and then it didn''t suit him anymore.


    I used to wonder how John could be such a devoted husband and father to someone else. Then I met his family, and I realized his new wife was a nice person. Controlling, yes, like my mother, like Tandy, but John''s new wife was fair, hardworking, and considerate. That''s why he left us. Because Patsy was none of those things. So I couldn''t resent John for abandoning us. In a way, I did the same thing to Jude.

 December 2011 - Full Circle

    Your parents weren''t happy in Oklahoma.


    The house John had offered was, in truth, a small room, in a small office, in a little podunk town, miles from nowhere. They had few modern comforts, and yet again, Jude refused to work. So did Tandy, for that matter.


    That was a source of tension because John could scarcely provide for himself, let alone anyone else. John worked as a massage therapist and beautician in the same office he let Jude and Tandy live in.


    Before long, Jude and Tandy left for Missouri to live with Tandy''s mother, but her mother was an addict, and Tandy was trying to stay clean, so then they traveled to Washington to live with Patsy in Gramma Nora''s house. That lasted a couple months before they both said, "screw this," and came back to San Francisco.


    By that time, I was bartending on weekends, taking classes at CCSF on weekdays, living life, and having mind-blowing sex. I had even started hosting murder mystery parties at the house.


    The three of us were the hottest power couple of the moment.


    The boys and I usually went out to drag bars on weekends. We went to game nights at Totally Awesome! and found a groove that worked for all three of us.


    Then Jude and his family came back into my life.


    I told him you could all stay in the living room for a month, but not more. Oliver was wonderful and patient about it. It was fun having a baby in the house. I babysat while your parents ran errands.


    Eventually, your parents found housing, but it didn''t last.


    Jude continued to spiral. One night he came over. We were hanging out, talking about whatever, and somehow Mom came up in conversation. Jude exploded. He screamed Patsy was an evil bitch who deserved to die. Then he punched doors and banged his head against walls until he ran out of the house and into the night. I thought he was using again.


    Now I know it was something else. Something I should have known years before, but Jude never told me, and I never imagined it.


    One day, Tandy showed up at my house. You were in a stroller. We sat in the living room, where you took your first steps between the furniture.


    "Where''s Jude?" I asked finally. "What brings you over?"


    Tandy hesitated. It wasn''t like her to be anxious, but I could see she was agitated.


    "Jude''s in jail. We lost our housing because they caught us drinking. Then Jude set their mailbox on fire. The cops came and arrested him. I ran away just before they could¡­ They''re gonna take my son from me." Tears filled her eyes.


    I didn''t respond at first. There was more that she wasn''t telling me, but I couldn''t force it out of her. "No, they''re not," I told her. "Because we won''t let them. You''re not responsible for Jude''s actions, and you can stay here for now. I''ll talk to the roommates and figure something out."


    She let out a full-body sigh of relief.


    "What the hell is going on with Jude? Why is he acting like this?" I demanded.


    Tandy looked away for a moment and then directly at me to say, "She fucked him."


    I was lost. "Huh?"


    "Your mom."


    "Fucked who?"


    "Jude. Your mom and Jude had sex."


    I stared at her for several seconds with a ringing in my ears. That''s absurd, I thought. No, they didn''t. Tandy must be making it up. But who would lie about something like that? And why? Why would Tandy lie? It didn''t make sense.


    "How do you know this?"


    "Jude told me."


    Again, I stared at her suspiciously, mouth agape.


    "I need to call my mom." I got up and left the room.


    At the time, Patsy and I were on speaking terms. I had forgiven her for her failings, her selfishness, her stupidity. I had forgiven her for failing me, Jude, and Morgan. She was a lazy, greedy narcissist, but I didn''t hold that against her anymore.


    So she answered when I called.


    Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences.


    "Hi, Sebastian! This is a nice surprise. What''s goin'' on?"


    "Hey, Mom. I have a question, and I just need an honest answer, okay?"


    "Okay¡­"


    "Did you and Jude have sex?"


    Dead silence for several seconds. Jesus Christ.


    "Where did you hear that?"


    "That''s not important. Did it happen?"


    Again, silence.


    "Sorta, kinda."


    "What does that mean, ''sorta, kinda?'' I need specifics."


    Irritated sigh. "How do you see this conversation ending, Sebastian?"


    "I dunno. Probably with us not speaking for a long time."


    She scoffed and hung up.


    I couldn''t move, sitting on my bed with the phone at my ear and a thousand-yard stare for I don''t know how long.


    When I finally walked out of my bedroom, it was like moving through a drunken daze or dense fog. Mundane things became important. Important things became mundane.


    Tandy was grateful to not carry the secret''s burden alone anymore. Meanwhile, I was wrecked emotionally, mentally, and even physically (I would break out in hives, acne, and allergies), but not for the first time, so I kept it together.


    Tandy and I talked for several hours. Then she asked me to watch you for a few weeks. She reasoned it would be easier to find a job and a place to live without a baby in tow. I said sure, and then she left you with me. Cops came and took you into Child Protective Services later that week. Tandy was arrested, and since you had no legal guardian, you fell into the foster system.


    I finally took stock of my life and realized I had made a mess of it.


    I was so preoccupied with boyfriends and trying to be popular that I had done nothing as my brother spiraled. Getting drunk every weekend. Picking up random hotties for orgies again and again and again. What was the point? Where did it bring me?


    Jude had been drowning, all while I was fucking the lifeguard.


    The people I had been chasing, their love and approval, it all left me empty.


    I got what I wanted. It cost me the only family I had left.


    I decided to adopt you.


    A public attorney was appointed to your case, a kind man named Matthew, and he helped me get visitation privileges. It took weeks. Government bureaucracy is always slow, and child settlement cases are particularly so, but I finally got to see you. Your foster mom was a wonderful Black woman who gave you big booby hugs. Our visits were supervised, but I saw you every week. You seemed happy.


    I''m sorry to say neither of your parents visited. I think they lost faith in themselves when they lost you. But Tandy had one last card to play. She called her father and asked for his help in getting you back. It didn''t work out the way she had hoped. Her father got custody of you.


    Sorry for spoiling, but you know how this story ends. Tandy''s father fought me for custody for over a year. We went to court so many times I lost count.


    Your CPS caseworker didn''t like me. CPS, in general thought, I was too young and too unconventional. Jude''s continuing erratic behavior didn''t help my image, either. They suspected I was secretly (or not so secretly, depending on your perspective) a fuck-up.


    I was naive to ever think I stood a chance. Tandy''s parents had been working the same job and living in the same house for as long as I''d been alive. I was a 22-year-old fag without a college degree, renting in one of the most expensive cities in the world. Of course, the judge made the conservative choice.


    But I wouldn''t know that for almost a year. So I changed myself and my life to better accommodate CPS and the courts. I stopped working at the Golden Cow and got a job working for Dante at Totally Awesome!


    Dante and I had reconnected over many, many games of Magic, so when he needed a new cashier, I stepped in. Turns out I love board games, and I''m pretty darn good at Magic: the Gathering. I spent more and more time at the store. Eventually, Dante and I began an affair.


    Oliver and August weren''t on board with fatherhood, and they both wanted to drop acid at Burning Man, so I broke up with them and moved in with Dante, figuring a traditional dyad with a business owner might present a more compelling family picture.


    It took months to get Dante over to my way of thinking, but eventually, we earned unsupervised weekend stayovers, converting Dante''s guest room into a nursery. A CPS worker came and inspected the apartment and gave us the go-ahead, and for the last couple months, you lived with us in our home. I''d never been happier. I really believed it was possible that I could salvage a family from all the pain and loss, but I failed. I failed you. I failed Jude. It eats at me constantly, like grief. I am so sorry.


    At the final placement hearing, Jude showed up late. He was disruptive, and his testimony was incomprehensible. It didn''t help my case that I was sitting behind him.


    The judge ruled you would be sent to Missouri to live with Tandy''s parents.


    Jude couldn''t understand the ruling. He had decided he would get custody of you. His testimony was quite certain on that point. So it came as rather a shock to him when things didn''t work out that way.


    I bought him a burrito after court.


    I told him I love him.


    I told him it wasn''t his fault.


    I didn''t ask questions because I already knew everything I needed to know.


    He was a minor.


    She was giving him mind-altering substances.


    I told him it wasn''t his fault.


    I told him I love him.


    I told him I will always have his back, no matter what he does.


    But I''m angry.


    I''m angry he lied to me. I''m angry he didn''t trust me with this secret.


    I''m angry he abandoned you to the foster system.


    I''m angry he abandoned me by destroying himself.


    I told him I love him.


    I will always love him, no matter what.


    But I can''t save him. I can''t follow where he''s gone.


    I won''t devote my life trying to save someone from themself.


    He has to save himself.


    I told him I love him.


    And then I told him goodbye.


    I''m glossing over so much. Sorry, but I don''t want to linger here.


    CPS came. I strapped you into their car seat and said goodbye. Just like I did for Connor and Carrie in Montana. And that was the last time I saw you.


    I stayed in bed for days after that. Dante and I fought. I don''t remember why or over what. But I left him, too. Just like I left countless people before him.


    And then I left San Francisco.


    I had changed everything about myself to try to be a father, and when I couldn''t be that anymore, I didn''t know who I was. I couldn''t go back to the man I''d been. That man was selfish. He was a failure. He let everyone down. I had to be someone new, somewhere else, and there was only one place I could think to go.


    With my suitcase in one hand and my spiral ring notebook in the other, I went to the San Francisco Greyhound Station and told the attendant, "I''m here to pick up a ticket to Oklahoma City."

 Epilogue - December 22, 2012

    I disassociated in the window seat as the Greyhound drove out of San Francisco.


    "Dream Sweet in Sea Major'''' by Miracle Musical played in my earbuds.


    Was I supposed to have learned something from all this? Why did I lose the people I loved?


    Maybe I deserved it.


    "Stop feeling sorry for yourself," Rowan said from the seat next to mine. "You hate when other people do that."


    I wanted to disagree, but all my excuses felt weak. Rowan lost much more than I had, and they still woke up early to plot revenge every morning.


    But revenge isn''t a great color on me.


    Besides, I had nobody specific to blame for my suffering besides myself.


    And maybe my parents. But at a certain point, blaming your parents for your problems just feels adolescent, you know? You''re an adult. Move forward.


    But blaming myself felt good and proper. I failed my brother. Again. I left my friends and boyfriends. I hurt people. I should hurt. It wasn''t self-pity. It was fair.


    Rowan watched me with sad eyes. "So you''ve decided to suffer. How tedious."


    "What do you want from me? I''m alone. I''m a loser. I was a fool for playing."


    "So you''re gonna give up then? Lie down in front of this bus?"


    "Of course not."


    "Then what''s the plan?"


    "I don''t know! What''s your plan?"


    Rowan smirked and sighed. "Morgan, Lyn, Hinata, and I will make it to Lona. Then we''ll find a safe passage to Safo. There''s a sanctuary on Safo, not unlike Sprigga''s Sanctuary. We''ll hide out there for a while. Mourn our losses. Figure out next steps. Eventually, we''ll find the Fae Remnants, but you know that already. It''s your story. I''m just your avatar. But since I''m you, I''ll put your question back to you.


    This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.


    "Why did this happen?" Rowan asked me. "Why did I lose the people I loved?"


    The question took my breath away. By virtue of having written it, I killed Rowan''s family. Not Adam. Not Timothy. Me. And Rowan wanted to know why. Like I wanted to know why I had lost my family. And what could I say?


    "Characters suffer so they can overcome. The more they lose, the greater the catharsis when they finally win."


    That sounded right, like something Professor Rees might say.


    "But the story is over, and we didn''t win. There''s no catharsis," said Rowan.


    "Your story isn''t over," I answered. "You already have a plan: Find a sanctuary. Mourn. Figure out next steps from there."


    "It''s a pretty good plan, don''t ya think?"


    "Yeah. As far as short-term plans go, it''s not bad."


    "Thanks. It''s yours."


    I gave Rowan a quizzical expression.


    "You need a plan. Take mine: Find a sanctuary. Mourn for a bit. Figure out next steps from there."


    I turned from Rowan to look out the window.


    But Rowan wouldn''t let up. "Oklahoma, huh? Yikes. What are you going to do there?"


    I shrugged. "Hell if I know. Finish my book, I suppose. Start the next one. I''ll probably be bored senseless. Should have plenty of time to write. Maybe I''ll enroll in a local university. See what they teach at¡­ whatever the opposite is of CCSF."


    "So your story isn''t over, either," Rowan offered gently.


    "It''s not the same. Your life is a story. Mine isn''t."


    "Are you so sure? Is yours not the Hero''s Journey?"


    I frowned.


    "You left home because you wanted to experience gay life. You entered San Francisco, a kind of Elsewhere, adapted to it, got what you wanted, paid a heavy price for it, and now you''re returning to familiarity, having changed. Hero''s Journey. Are you certain it isn''t you speaking to your author right now? How do you know your life isn''t a story?"


    "Because I''m not a hero. Not in the literal or literary sense. I''m a trash person, just another street urchin with nothing and no one. If this was a test, I failed it. Who would read this crap? It''s bleak."


    "Shrek was a swamp ogre, and he became king. Aladdin was a street urchin, too, remember."


    "Those were comedies. My story is tragic," I said, realizing this scene was practically lifted from the film Stranger Than Fiction. "Maybe that''s the takeaway from all¡­ this: my life is a tragedy."


    "Doesn''t fit the narrative. You''re not a hero. Said it yourself. And according to Professor Rees, a tragic hero must be essentially noble and good. The fall of an unscrupulous person evokes laughter and applause."


    "So my story is either a comedy or a tragedy depending on how you judge my character. That''s something to chew on, at least."


    "You''re being flippant. But I''ve got another point in comedy''s favor," Rowan teased.


    I raised an eyebrow.


    "Comedies usually end in marriage or birth or some symbolic victory of life. 8 Eden ends in a marriage. 8 Jude ends with a baby being born. Comedy."


    I scoffed. "If the goal is subverting expectations, sure. Let''s call it a comedy."


    Rowan became very serious. "This story is a comedy. I can prove it."


    "How''s that?"


    "I''m pregnant."