“Yeah, what the fuck am I holding in my hand anyway?”

“It’s called Dutch Blitz. You’ll love it. You get to shout and hit the table.” David examined the images on the cards again. They looked like old-timey farm implements? There was a bucket and a cart. “Regular playing cards had implications of gaaaambling.” Iris made a spooky motion with her hands. “So that was a no go, but this was okay.”

“That’s wild.”

“It is. It all pops up with my dad more than I used to realize. It backgrounds his choices? Like: My mom and I go to Mass when we visit her family, and to her it’s like, ‘Who gives a shit? It’s tradition, it’s important to them, no big deal.’ But he stays at home. Or like: He’s suspicious of earnest people. Idealists. I get that from him. But he doesn’t talk about it. The things I don’t know.”

As Iris explained the rules of the game, David thought back to when he’d suggested breathlessly that what if instead of driving a U-Haul they took the train—no, hear him out, the tickets would be super cheap with a companion fare sale, and they could check so many boxes on Amtrak, it was like half a U-Haul anyway, which it turns out would be sooo expensive to rent, plus with the price of gas and hotels? Come on, Iris, I know it’ll be uncomfortable, but don’t you want new furniture anyway, please? And to his surprise, Iris didn’t fight. True, her initial reaction was “Oh my God, who are you? Simon and fucking Garfunkel?!” But after making some irritable noises she said, “What the hell. My father’s ancestors would approve.”

David wouldn’t have gone if it weren’t for her. After that night at Lola’s, the crystal-morning-doom thought of I’m going to do what?! kept him in bed for hours. Like: moving to New York to become transgendered—what the fuck?! It wasn’t like he had anything to catch him out there, you know? This was where the architect had probably been truly right: Some people were never happy. Moving to a different city did not solve your fucking problems! For God’s sake, he lived in Portland, Oregon, in the year of our Lord 2010; the mayor was a fag who’d admitted to boning an eighteen-year-old intern and HE WAS STILL THE MAYOR. If you can’t figure shit out here, where else, David? Run away to New York? What—you think you’re in the movies?

But to Iris it was a done deal. Her texts progressed smoothly in the following days: Hey babe, you booked that U-Haul yet? Hey babe, let’s do a going-away party together. Hey babe, got the train tickets! You owe me dollars. Hey babe, I know a couch you could sublet for a month or so. You remember Ridwan from Reed? They’re in the city now.

And David couldn’t say no. Some people made clear outlines of their lives and laid out a plan and executed that plan. Some people were that strong—that wasn’t David, but it was Iris. So David had nervously said to his friends, “Iris thinks I should come along to New York with her.” And Ray said, “That’s amazing, broseph! Brosephina. Do it!” He chanted sports-stadium style: “Do it! Do it! Da-vid, Da-vid!” And Leah said, “I can’t lie, I don’t want you to go for my own selfish reasons, because I love you and I want you here with me. But maybe you need to go. Maybe you really should.” And the bandana’d trans woman said, “I know folks you should look up.” Connie didn’t take it well, had tried to talk him out of it—“You don’t know what’s gonna happen out there! You’re gonna throw away your future to go be all la-di-da? You think you’ll go far? Good luck to you!” Yet even she, on the day he left, had cracked a smile. “I gotta admit. My kid in New York. Who’d have ever thunk?”