I had to get in a car soon to go to my dad’s in-state compound. I knew. I knew. But, like a lot of days, I couldn’t make myself do anything.

Where are you?
What are you still doing in the city?

My dad’s messages kept lighting up the screen as I reached down to scratch Pollock behind the ears. He made tiny grunts of pleasure and for a second I felt a little less guilty about making him wait to walk.

My dad worries about me a lot, like I’m a child or something. Actually, when I was younger, he was even worse. I remember when we first moved to New York. There were neighborhoods that my dad told me not to go to, ever. He said that the kind of people who lived there would take one look at my clothes, my shoes, my hair and kill or rape me or something. I remember those days. Once, when I was thirteen, because I thought my dad was wrong and everywhere was good and everybody was equal, I went to one of those places on the subway. I got off the train and smelled urine. There was this guy pissing, just pissing in a corner where the doorway was. I looked over and caught a glimpse of his cock, and it wasn’t even studded with pearls like anybody who has any bodmods has. I ran away. I couldn’t believe any of it. That people lived that way. And I didn’t think my dad was right, necessarily, that these people were all bad, but I realized he was right that there were places I shouldn’t go.

But the nice thing was that the older I got, the more those places disappeared. The whole city became nice, and clean, and everywhere around me crummy old buildings started getting ripped down and new, remarquable buildings, the kind with swimming pools on the roof and magnifique doormen, went up. The poor people went away. I didn’t know where they went, but I guess things must have gotten better for them. You didn’t have to feel bad about people asking you for money on the street when you were just out trying to have a good time with your friends. There were never any of those awkward moments when you didn’t know if someone was homeless or just dressed way down—they were just dressed way down, ten times out of ten. I was so happy that the city had cleaned up, and the homeless shelters weren’t full, and everything was good for everybody who lived there. That’s progress.