Arrivals

You’ve caught the morning’s first flight and your car is late, but Aiden told you it’d be there and five minutes later it is. He’s filming in Georgia, because apparently everyone’s filming in Georgia, which means he’s sleeping on set, which means you won’t catch him during daylight hours—but he still puts you up in a hotel on Piedmont for the weekend.

It’s like Montrose, he texted, but gayer.

You’re surprised he even remembers the neighborhood. And you start to ask if he isn’t worried about having his name on the reservation, given the fag of it all. Then you remember that he probably made an assistant do that shit for him.

Your driver’s a tall Black dude. He helps with your bags. When he says, You don’t need that face mask here, you thank him but you keep your shit on. In the Mercedes, this gentleman asks where you’re coming from, and then blinks twice before telling you that Houston is his favorite city in the world.

The barbecue!

The strip clubs!

The most delicious women in North America!

He pauses for your opinion on the third matter.

You say the weather’s chillier here than you thought it would be.

And your driver’s eyes flash in the rearview mirror before he takes the hint, speeding through the rest of the trip in silence.

In the spring, Aiden shot a film in New Haven. And then a series in Philly. And then a documentary in Brooklyn. And then this other feature in Austin. That week, he put you up in a house just east of downtown, where the block’s foot traffic and stray cats and revving engines kept you up past midnight.

But you liked waking up at sunrise. You stumbled through the heat, past chicken coops rounding out tiny over-renovated bungalows, and bought churros from a vegan taquería that you thought Aiden might like. (I can’t eat meat for this role, he’d texted.) You’d envisioned walking along the train tracks hand in hand, or pointing out wares in the coffee shops lining East Cesar Chavez, but what actually happened was that he cancelled on you twice.

Something came up.

And then again.

Eventually, the muggy afternoon the day before your flight home, Aiden found time to meet. You were stoned from some pot that you’d bought off Grindr, and you hadn’t really showered, but he fucked you in front of the window anyway, gripping your hips while you braced against the sofa.

The next morning, he called a car to take you to the airport. Your driver was a whiteboy who couldn’t have been much older than twenty. He had sleepy eyes, and as he pulled his Chevy out of the neighborhood he idled at the stoplight for too long—which was when you realized that he’d fallen asleep.

Sometimes Aiden calls a limo to take you home from I.A.H. That’s when you know it’s been a good week on set. Other weeks, you wait for one of the roster of drivers willing to work at dawn—usually, the same Vietnamese person ends up picking you up in a Honda, wearing a snapback and playing J-pop the entire drive home.

Coming home from Boston a few weeks later, your driver’s a Brazilian woman. Her smile feels like a warm blanket. She plays Jorge Ben Jor as you glide down I-610, and the guitars make Houston feel a little more present. When you ask how her night’s been going, she says that it’s busier than usual: people are travelling again. Maybe she’ll hop on a plane, too. She’s got two kids in Boston she hasn’t seen in two years. When you ask how old they are, your driver laughs and says, Basically grown!

Eventually, the two of you pull back onto the feeder road. At a stoplight, you idle under a billboard, and what towers above you is a portrait of Aiden’s face.

You do your best not to stare.

Your driver gives the sign a once-over.

You wonder if she knows, but she only shakes her head, smiling at you in the back seat and taking a right into the neighborhood.

In the nine years that you’ve been entangled with Aiden, many things have changed.

You got chubby and Aiden got fucking ripped.

You stayed the same height and Aiden sprang, like, four inches taller.

You wrote one book that twelve people bought and Aiden found roles in nearly twenty-five major productions: first as a small-town coke dealer, and then as a big-city cop, and then as a boutique sneaker salesman, and then as a bail bondsman, and then as another cop, and then as a pastor, and then as a barber, and then as a pimp, and then as a con man, and then as a slave, and then as a slave master, and then as a slave catcher, and then as a sleazy pharmacy tech before he voiced an animatronic penguin in a movie that broke box-office records globally. (One night, after you’d gone down on him and he’d finished on your face, you asked him why he couldn’t just play someone like himself; the volume of his laughter insured that you’d never ask him a question about his profession again.)

Eventually, Aiden got rich and shipped out to L.A., because that made sense for his job.

You kept your gig teaching E.S.L. in Houston, because California is fucking expensive, although your buddy Shun swears you’d be happier with him in the Bay.

Aiden spent his weekends at galas, smiling into everyone’s iPhones. You spent your Saturdays on the patio at Ripcord, sipping beer after beer as white bears in leather chaps looked on with boredom.

A few weeks later, the Cadillac picking you up from Miami International is driven by an old dude who’s Cuban, which you know because he tells you twelve times.

His mustache is incredible. His car smells like fresh bread. A trumpety tune gurgles from the speakers, and he asks what brought you to Florida, noting the sun and the sand and the gorgeous, gorgeous mujeres—unless, of course, you have a girlfriend, but also, perhaps, even if you do, because isn’t she waiting back home in dusty Wherever the Fuck while you’re Here, in the Present, Right Now?

When you reply, I’m just visiting a buddy, your driver stays silent for six stoplights.

Then he says, Miami loves the gays, too. A big guy like you? I’m sure you’ll find a nice papito here.

And these men are at the front of your mind—tall or short or pale or dark or stocky or skinny or hairy or smooth—because it’s been weeks since you’ve seen Aiden, and for once you haven’t fucked anyone else in the interim. But when you reach the hotel, less than two miles from where he’s filming, Aiden texts that he won’t catch you this weekend after all.

Something came up, he writes.

But the hotel’s yours for the weekend.

And also, the car will pick you up all the same, and did you get last month’s deposit?

This is one of many times you’ve thought to ask how long he expects you to put up with this. But before you text Aiden back, eventually, inevitably, you’ve made it up to your room and are wrapped in the bathrobe. It’s maybe another five minutes before you’ve updated your profiles on the apps (changing your bio to: Visiting 🐷!), but everyone’s so beautiful that you just beat one off on the chaise.

The next week, in Manhattan, you and Aiden actually spend a morning in bed: ordering avocado toast from room service, sipping twelve-dollar coffee, watching HGTV as you suck each other off—cosplaying like the couple you’re sure you could maybe become.

But then Aiden gets a text from his public-girlfriend-at-the-moment. She’s a Brit who co-starred in his most recent film, with bright-red hair and no accent to speak of. The truth is that you enjoy her work more than his—Shun calls this your queer responsibility—but of course you’d never say that. And, as a sort of punishment, Aiden is dressed and out the door instantly; he apologizes for the inconvenience, and an Asian dude sits in a Hyundai downstairs waiting to drive you back to J.F.K.

Aiden swears things will get easier. Soon! He’ll take some time off. You’ll spend a few weeks in Copenhagen, in a rented town house among the whites. Or you’ll laze on the beach in Puerto Vallarta. Or tour museums in Berlin, because what’s the point of the money he’s making if you two can’t spend it together?

And this is what you’re thinking of as your driver sits on the horn. He’s whistling along to Schubert. The symphony leaps from his speakers. But the traffic is debilitating, and you’re well on your way to missing your flight—until, suddenly, he veers off road, plunging through a series of side streets, and a Korean woman’s voice gives the directions block by block, lilting from avenue to avenue until you’ve finally made it to Departures.

When you offer your driver a janky gamsahamnida, he breaks into the biggest grin. He wishes you safe travels. And a happy life! Which you realize Aiden’s never done.

When you land in Houston, gagging from the humidity, a Black woman at baggage claim is holding a sign with your name on it. Walking outside to her Audi, she asks where you’re from. When you say Here, she says Mm.

She tells you that her family’s been in Texas for generations. Her people lived in Prairie View. Her father’s father taught at the university. His father did, too. Her mother was a cellist who played for the Houston Symphony, and when your driver asks if you’d like to hear a bootleg of her performing Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, you shrug under your mask and say, Why not.

So this is what plays as the Audi drifts down I-69, across Kirby and then Weslayan, until you’ve finally reached Bellaire, past the pho bars and payday sharks and pupuserías and smoke shops. When your driver stops in front of your place, parking beside your neighbor’s jasmine bushes, she tells you to take care. You promise that you’ll try.

This city’s changed so much, she says, but some parts feel the same.

When you text Shun about Aiden’s promises, he doesn’t respond for hours. You try to understand. After Shun made it to California, at the outset of the pandemic, he quit his remote accounting gig, dyed his hair blond, weaved his way into a throuple with two graying ceramicists, and found a job selling pot.

You wake up the next morning to a message from Shun: Men say a lot of shit!!!!

Living apart means that you and Aiden are open. Obviously.

Mostly, this means that you fuck whoever in your orbit is up for it. You tend to attract the same kind of person—fleshy, jokey guys—and you’ve never wanted for dick, but no one ever believes you when you say this.

Lately, Aiden’s been associated with A-list girlfriend after A-list girlfriend. Before Ms. Brit, there was the blond spy, and the brunette scammer, and the red-haired nanny, and the black-haired zombie slayer who got slammed for tax evasion.

Also: a few years back, you came up poz after spending the night at an orgy in Midtown.

You thought Aiden would drop you from his life, but he didn’t.

He didn’t say anything absurd. He knew that U=U.

That was actually when he started flying you out to his various gigs.

And you’ve kept each other around.

Or he’s kept you around.

And then there’s the other thing: every few weeks, Aiden transfers a few grand your way. Shun says that he’s basically paying for your life. Which you deny. But you take the money, putting it all in an account you can’t bring yourself to touch. Every time your bank calls about scheduling a consultation for this healthy balance, you let it go to voice mail.

A month later, in Chicago, a Pakistani cub picks you up from the airport. He’s got a rainbow flag in his car. When he asks where you’re headed, you give him the address. Aiden doesn’t do gay bars—too risky, too many phones—which means you’ll have to check this one out on your own. But, after a few minutes of silence, your driver asks where you’re from, and grins at the answer, because he grew up in Sugar Land.

The car feels ten degrees warmer. Your driver asks about Montrose. His grandmother owned a home on Fairview a few decades back, but then the neighborhood changed, with the investors and the cafés and the condos. And the white people. After years and years of pressure, it just made sense to sell. Now she owns a four-bedroom home in Katy, for a fraction of the price, and your driver’s the only grandchild who hasn’t actually visited.

Is JR’s still there? he asks, and you confirm that it is.

God, your driver says, I lost my virginity in that bathroom.

Which makes you cackle—because, you say, you did, too! You let some whiteboy rail you in an open stall, with his hands on your shoulders as you clung to his jacket. And you’ve never actually told anyone. For the rest of the drive, the two of you grin at each other through the mirror, delighting in this secret shared so many miles from home.

Back in Atlanta (because Aiden’s dirtbag-pharmacist sitcom was renewed for a third season), you’re picked up from the airport by a white lady. She insists on driving maskless. She simply lowers a window, rolling it up after you hit the highway. But she seems nice enough. You attempt to make small talk.

Your driver tells you that she owns a catering business with her son. They bake cookies and cakes for terminally ill toddlers across Georgia. COVID hurt their situation, but things have gradually picked up, and you say you’re happy to hear that they’re finding a way. Your driver smiles into the back seat, thanking you for the well wishes.

Then, idling at a stoplight, entirely out of nowhere, she says, The truth is that Atlanta is a dangerous city.

Clearly you aren’t from around here, she says. I can tell. So you must not know.

The locals are different, she says. Uneducated.

And, she adds, after the so-called protests, you can’t even send your kids to school. The history isn’t being taught. I picked up a teen the other day, and he didn’t even know it was nineuhleven! Nineuhleven! It’s disgusting! A perversion of the system!

You realize that if you wrote this in a book it would seem farcical (but it would also probably sell more copies than your usual bullshit). So you raise your hand in the rearview mirror, asking your driver to pull over. Never mind that it’s five blocks from the hotel. You’ll just walk through the neighborhood. When your driver refuses—because the app won’t allow it, and also it’s hardly safe—you inform her that you’ll piss on the cushion if she doesn’t pull over, and she pumps her brakes so hard that your head bounces against the passenger seat.

But you grab all your shit. You shut your ears as your driver yells through the window. And you’ve walked a few blocks before you realize that it’s snowing.

Aiden pops by on your first night in Atlanta, which is strange and notable because it usually takes him a minute. But you fuck on the sofa, and then on the bed, and then in the bathroom, and after he finishes a fourth time he asks if you’d like to take a walk.

Which is shocking! But it shouldn’t be. This is something you and Aiden did all the time back in Houston. Partly because you loved bumbling through your old neighborhood off Navigation, before you were priced out. Partly because that was all the two of you could afford to do. But, on this evening, you lean against each other’s shoulders, holding hands as Aiden leads you into a café. You’ve just sat down with sandwiches and coffees when Aiden clears his throat, beaming, and tells you that he’s been cast, in a limited series, as the President of the United States.

You say, Oh.

Then you add, What?

But this is, Aiden tells you, huge news! It will change his life. And yours. For the better, if that wasn’t obvious! If his team does this right, it could mean awards season. Accolades. An inclusion rider. This role will open the door to other, huger roles.

It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, Aiden says, cheesing as he licks foam from the rim of his cup.

Which is when, for reasons still unknown, you smile and say, So they made the President a queer?

Aiden takes a long sip of his coffee. Then he clears his throat. You immediately start to apologize, but Aiden cuts you off.

It really is a funny joke, he says. Ha-ha!

But also, he says, accepting the role means more work.

Which means even less time together.

That’s enough for you to lose your cool. You squeeze your thighs under the table.

Then why the fuck are we even still trying? you say. Why the fuck are you here if you can’t even be here?

We’re doing the best we can, Aiden says.

If this is your best, then it fucking sucks.

But here you are. It’s not like you’ll ever do any better.

Aiden delivers this like he’s telling you the weather. Then he turns to his phone.

You think of all the things you could say. Each of them tastes raw on your tongue.

When you look up, you realize that the blue-haired barista’s been staring your way, but he blinks like something’s in his eye when you catch him.

A few nights later, you’re back in Houston, vaping beside idling taxis when Shun texts, Are you saying you believe him? You really think you can’t do any better?

And the truth is that you aren’t sure. You and Aiden have too much history. You both came up in ultra-Baptist homes. You both got slapped around by your fathers. Aiden can finish your sentences, you know precisely when he needs hand lotion, and your individual laughs have become one laugh, along with all the other ridiculous things that synch when people are in love.

Shun writes, Is he as serious about you as you are about him?

Must be, you write. He wouldn’t be sending for me otherwise?

Bubbles appear on your phone. They disappear just as quickly. Someone finally accepts your ride request—it’s the same Vietnamese person who’s picked you up before, their name’s Tony, they’re in a different snapback—and they nod as you clatter into the back seat of their Honda. You glance at their profile picture, and then the back of their head, and right when you open your mouth to start a conversation Shun finally texts you back.

He writes, Can the dick really be worth it?

You type back, begrudgingly, But can’t it?

Because this is a crucial component of the conversation: Aiden has indubitably got better at fucking. There is no other way to say it. And you were fine with your sex life to begin with—hardly even needed penetration, truly—but with each passing session Aiden gains a new wind, more speed, and increased flexibility, leaving you sweaty and breathless well after you’ve finally come.

For all the ways you miss his body’s softness, this fills a different kind of void in you. You’ve fucked enough guys to know how rare that is. And you also know that, on the opposite end, a part of your appeal is you’re open to things that Aiden’s girlfriends aren’t—any position, any location, any kink that he can wrap his head around.

The two of you complement each other in this way. It’s a union you’re reluctant to relinquish.

But Shun refuses to engage with this argument; he sends you a photo of his dog instead. He adopted the pit bull at your suggestion, a few weeks after he left Houston.

Now the pup’s all grown up. You send back thirty-two hearts as a reply.

When you make it to LAX a few weeks later, Aiden and the British actress have publicly split.

On Instagram, they’ve cited irreconcilable differences. You make a face as Aiden wipes tears from his cheeks in a video he’s posted.

Maybe it’s for the best, you text him, a few hours later.

Maybe you don’t have to be a fucking asshole, he replies, immediately.

You type one message, and then a second. You end up deleting both of them. Four white drivers cancel on you, and finally a fifth person, a Mexican woman, accepts your digital plea.

She says she’ll have to make a few calls, and will that be all right? You tell her it’s cool with you. Despite a lifetime in Houston, your Spanish is pretty shitty. But you understand enough to know that your driver is talking to an anxious suitor, then chatting up a second man, whose tone sounds slightly more desperate, followed by a third boyfriend with a husky voice that’s eventually reduced to sobs, before she switches to English on a fourth call, with her younger brother.

A little bit of the kid’s laughter flits through the speakers. Your driver’s tone of voice changes. She asks how he’s doing, and if he’s finished his homework, and if he’s eaten, chiding him when he complains that a person can only do one thing at a time.

In Houston, a few weeks later, you’re picked up by Tony again. This time, there’s no snapback. They’re wearing a Lakers jersey, and their hair sits on the back of their neck. Neither of you says much of anything, but they play Hikaru Utada on the Honda’s speakers, which gets you thinking about how Aiden used to play them in his shitty car, driving up and down Westheimer until you finally ran out of gas, and it’s not long before you’re wheezing in the back seat.

Tony is adequately alarmed. They pull off the feeder road. You open the car door, pace on the concrete, inhale the city’s infinite smog. Tony asks if you’re all right, and you tell them that you’re fine. When you ask them to keep driving, they say, I don’t want you having a fucking panic attack on the road.

This strikes you as reasonable. You take a moment to observe your driver again: you thought they were cute from their photo, and your suspicion is confirmed. Once you’ve finally slowed your breathing, the two of you blink at each other. Tony swears under their breath before they turn the ignition.

Which is when, entirely beside yourself, you ask if they know a good place to eat.

Tony cocks their head.

Then they say, You’re my last ride of the night. I’d need you to change your destination.

So that’s a yes?

Change it first. I’ll give you an address. Then we’ll see.

The noodle spot they take you to is only a block from your place. You’ve never seen it before, but it looks generations old. The walls are a pastel pink. Your shoes squeak on the tile. Tony orders for you in Vietnamese, and you’re starting to think that this whole thing was a Bad Fucking Idea when a bowl of bún riêu is placed in the center of your table, along with a fork just for you. Tony smiles as they set it aside, passing you a pair of wooden chopsticks.

So, they say, do you just go around asking out rideshare drivers?

I’ve never done this before, you say.

Could’ve fooled me, Tony says.

Neither of you says anything else. An episode of “Paris by Night” blinks on the television above the table. You’re thinking that this meal might be shared entirely in silence, and how that wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing, when Tony asks how long you’ve lived in Houston.

Too long, you say. I’ll probably die here.

That isn’t funny, they say.

I wasn’t joking.

Good. I hate comedians.

Tony’s been in Texas for only a year. The state feels a little impenetrable, they say, and a little fascist, and pretty fucking transphobic.

But you’re still here, you say.

Duh, Tony says. The food’s too good.

When they ask what you do for a living, you tell them you wrote a book.

So you’re a writer?

No. Just the one book.

And Tony surprises you by laughing. They fold their hands over the table, grinning.

But what about you? you ask.

What about me?

What else do you do? Besides drive?

Who says I need anything else, Tony says. I set my own hours. I don’t need to buy a suit. I honestly probably make more money than you, and I definitely make more than at my old gig.

Which was? you ask.

Standup comedy, Tony says, and smiles. I wrote jokes for a living.

And you got tired of laughing?

No. But I got tired of making white people laugh.

The waitress pops by your table again, refilling your water. Once she’s moved on, you consider Tony again.

My boyfriend’s an actor, you say, and the word actually makes you shiver because Aiden’s never called you that out loud.

Would I know them, Tony says.

I think so, you say.

Tony only blinks back at you.

So, they say, is that what you were crying about, and you debate bringing up the minor catastrophes of your life, but instead you smile and say, Yeah.

Been there, your driver adds. But a person who makes you cry might not be the person for you.

I don’t think he means to.

That doesn’t make it better. Fuck that guy.

The two of you lean over your noodles. Steam fogs the air between you. You start to smile, and you wonder why, but you decide just to let the moment play out.

And of course it’s not long before Aiden texts you from New York. It’s been days since you’ve heard from him, since his outburst over text.

But he’s sorry for being a dickhead. He wants you around again. He’s paid for a room in Manhattan tomorrow night. You text back that the turnaround doesn’t work for you, and it’s another few hours before Aiden replies.

It’s a nine-text screed that basically ends with how obviously he can’t visit you.

And also: If you cared, you’d find the time.

Reading it makes you want to throw your phone out the fucking window. But you don’t because it’d be too fucking expensive to buy another one, and the E.S.L. center’s been cutting your hours.

When you text Shun about your maybe-date, he wonders if you got Tony’s number. You did.

Shun texts, So did you call them?

You text, No.

When Shun asks why not, you tell him you don’t need any more problems.

There are bigger problems than your shitty movie star paramour who won’t claim you, Shun texts. Actual issues in this world.

We’re in like three different proxy wars, Shun texts. The country’s a fucking gun range. The planet’s on fire. I want to get to work without getting shoved under the fucking BART by a fucking Proud Boy. I want my mom not to get punched in the head on the street by some fucking racist asshole.

Wait, you text. You never talk about these things?

You never ask, Shun texts.

And you don’t know how to respond to this.

Because it’s true.

So, for a few hours, you don’t say anything at all.

Then you send six texts to apologize. You ask Shun how his mother’s doing.

He responds immediately: Ma’s fine. She just discovered OnlyFans.

Despite everything, you take the flight to New York.

Your driver is an Iranian dude. He has the flag in his car, along with some pictures drawn by his daughter. His hands are grizzled, but his features are baby soft, and he plays light, tinny jazz as the two of you move through traffic. It reminds you of a bathhouse you once visited, where the fucking was broken up by muted guitars. Your driver asks if the music’s too loud, and you tell him that it’s absolutely perfect.

When Aiden meets you in the hotel lobby, he looks the most at ease you’ve seen him in years. You’ve been following the blogs—they’ve been about nothing but the breakup—yet Aiden doesn’t wear any of that on his smile, and once you’ve locked the door he fucks you face down in front of the mini-fridge.

Afterward, the two of you lie on the carpet. You place Aiden’s palm in between your hands. He traces circles around your belly.

Then you do a funny thing: you ask if you can fuck him.

Over the course of your relationship, it’s just been assumed that you’d bottom. From the very first time you fucked each other, this was a thing that never changed. Aiden grabs his wrist, bashful all of a sudden.

I don’t know, he says. That seems like a lot.

What, you say. What? You’ve literally only ever been inside of me?

I know, Aiden says. But, you know, I don’t know how that would work. I think we’re better the way things are.

The two of you remain on the carpet until Aiden stands to get dressed. But you only roll onto your side, and then onto your knees, so that your forehead’s pressed against the windowpane. The glass stretches from floor to ceiling. You stare down at all the people below you, stepping in and out of bodegas, texting at intersections, coming and going from the contours of their lives.

But there’s a memory that comes to mind: the evening you told Aiden you were poz. He was back in Houston for a two-week stretch. The two of you smoked on the patio of George, back when Aiden could still do that. A gaggle of gays leaned on the bench beside you, holding their sides from laughter, and you breathed in their gasps and the smoke and the humidity and you told Aiden what you’d wanted to tell him.

At first, he didn’t say anything. He took another pull of his cigarette.

Then he grasped your hand, folding his fingers into yours.

I don’t care, he said. I’m just glad you’re O.K.

That’s all I care about, Aiden said, and then he smiled, glowing under the midnight lights.

Hours later, you’re snoring when your cell starts buzzing. You fell asleep in your boxers on top of the comforter, so you roll across the mattress to silence it.

But it’s actually Aiden. Who tells you that he’s calling from across the city.

He’s back together with the British actress. They figured something out. He wasn’t sure whether to tell you, but now he’s thinking that he needs to.

O.K., you say.

And also, Aiden says, she knows.

Fuck, you say. Fuck.

You’re thinking that maybe it’s because of something you overlooked. Maybe you left your meds or a jockstrap or poppers at his place—but Aiden says, No. None of that.

She knew.

She’s known.

She simply decided to ignore it.

But now she’s given him a choice.

If I stay with her, Aiden says, she’ll keep it to herself. She won’t tell anyone.

The two of you pause on the line. Down the hallway, you can hear drunken laughter.

You mean she won’t blow up your life, you say.

Yeah, Aiden says, exactly.

But I can tell her I won’t do it, Aiden says. I can tell her I don’t care. I just need to know that you want me to. That you think we can stick it out.

The laughter down the hallway dims. It’s replaced by a tinny ringing.

You want me to decide for you, you say.

What I want, Aiden says, is whatever you want. If you want me to stay, then I will.

And then, as he breathes into the phone, Aiden says three words that you’ve never heard from him before.

You think about how you were always the heavier breather. Aiden was always silent. Sometimes, at night, you’d wake up and shake him just to make sure he was still alive. It always took a minute to settle him back down.

An hour later, you get a car to the airport. Your driver’s a Chinese guy who turns his music down while you call the airline to change the ticket, then turns it back up when you start to cry, humming along to the Cantopop. Eventually, he reaches for tissues, handing them to you wordlessly. He says something in Cantonese, which you don’t speak. But then he repeats it, rubbing a hand along his cheek.

Shun picks you up from the Oakland airport.

His dog’s in the passenger seat. The car smells like pot, which makes your toes as warm as your cheeks. When Shun tells you to move his pup to the back seat, you put her in your lap instead.

She’s fine, you say.

Really?

Really.

Don’t blame me if we crash into a divider, Shun says.

And then, I’m sorry that happened to you. But what are you going to do with the money?

I’ll donate it, you say.

Really, Shun says.

No, you say. Or at least not all of it. I’ll figure something out.

Shun pulls off the highway, and you loop around a neighborhood, and, in the way that your life is a joke, you run into flyers of Aiden’s face as the President of the United States.

The suit fits well on his shoulders. He looks happy. But, convincing as his smile may be, you recognize it as his fake one. The real one has more cheek. More of a crick in his neck. You hope, eventually, he’ll have the chance to actually show it. But the thought leaves your head when Shun’s dog slobbers in your lap, which has Shun yelling and you laughing for the first time in months.

You fly back to Houston two weeks later. Sulking away from baggage claim, you call your own car. The guy who picks you up is an older man from Peru, and when he asks how your night is going you tell him it’s been fine.

He says that so many people have sat where you’re sitting. He used to drive luxury taxis. The pandemic killed his business. Killed it. But he took pictures of the stars—everyone you can imagine, your driver says—and he sent them to his son in Peru. These people, your driver says, made him finally see his father.

There are so many things that can happen in this life, your driver says. A human being must deal with so many things! What terrible luck. But, still, what a pleasure.

You smile at him through the rearview mirror. You’ve mostly just been texting Tony. Then your driver tells you to look up, because you’re passing the city’s skyline, glowing in the purple of the sunset behind you.

It’s enough to make your driver smile. He slaps the steering wheel. He says, We’re in the greatest city in the world! We can go anywhere from here! ♦