Part Two

The stone stairs leading up to the entrance of the public library in Portland look nothing like the steps to the Met in New York. Nonetheless, Portland has retained an insouciant charm that the frenetic energy of Manhattan cannot rival. And similarly, the primped teenagers in blazers and slacks could never vie with the gutter punks and the derelict alcoholics, black leggings and denim jackets seemingly pieced together with Sex Pistols and Misfits patches. I’m sitting among them, idly lighting a cigarette, when the red SUV pulls up. A Jeep, I guess: window rolled-down, crooked bumper, paint that flakes across the surface of the car like eczema on elbows. I stand up, hopping over the hirsute, passed-out homeless and gliding to the passenger seat. 1

“You look different,” I say. It’s not a gesture of flirtation; he really does. He’s grown his hair out and his face looks more structured. His eyes are bigger and there’s more chin. He doesn’t say anything; he just drives.2

“Where are we going?” I ask. He shrugs. Silence. The sun glistens through the streaked surface of the window, casting shadows on his face and illuminating the shaggy tufts of strawberry blond hair, like the summer-yellowed grass in the meadows surrounding my house.3

“How is it being back in Portland?” he asks suddenly.4

“Well… it’s, uh…” I hem and haw for a moment. “It looks smaller. New York has made me blunter, stronger. I was callow and simple here. It’s different, now. I know things that I didn’t know before.”5

“What about the coke?” he asks. I inhale sharply, training myself to differentiate between the word and the nostalgic yearning it evokes. I wish he hadn’t seen me bent over a jagged slice of mirror, trying to force a nosebleed into nothingness.6

“Nine months clean,” I say.7

We’re at the supermarket, now. He pulls into the parking lot and I drop my lit cigarette onto the asphalt, watching the sparks fly. We get out of the car and I have that burning feeling in the back of my throat again, like something is about to happen. He wraps his thin arms around me and hugs me, pulling me in so I can feel the boyish thinness of his chest and smell that him-smell, the one that doesn’t have a name but kindles a memory and a taste and an era and he says, “I missed you.” 8

And I say, “I missed you too.”9