I hung on until I received my first full paycheck on Friday. It wasn’t anything to be proud of—$ 655—but it was enough. I paid Linda back immediately. As if the check wasn’t sufficient, waiting in the mail at home was a credit card with my name in raised letters and a thousand-dollar credit line—a student card I had lied through my teeth to get. I immediately called and had it activated and then rushed out and bought a reasonably priced full-sized pillow-top mattress, a box spring, two pillows, a duvet, flannel sheets, an alarm clock, and a nightstand to go beside the bed. In total it cost over nine hundred dollars but I didn’t care because I’d gotten no more than three hours of sleep on any one night. I could have cried when the bed was delivered the very next morning.

eight

1

ANOTHER WEEK PASSED. I went to work and I came home, still stuck in the same routine despite now having a bed and a few other luxuries for the apartment, all of which helped pull me out of the fugue state I’d been wallowing in. I was finding my footing in Chicago, and even the effect of Jeff ’s words had faded. However, there was still no sign of Gene. It was almost as though I had imagined him.

I bought a fine cigar for fifteen bucks to celebrate another week in the books at work. I lit it when I stepped off the train. Dominican, full-flavored, rich. I took in the smoke and, with the weekend just beginning, any stress I’d been feeling was purged with that first puff and carried away by the wind. I bought a bottle of Grand Marnier on my walk home. I checked the mail and sorted through it while climbing the stairs, cigar clutched between my teeth.

“You have one of those for me, right?” I heard from the top of the stairs. I looked up. Gene wore a sideways grin with a pair of white slacks, white shirt, and a blue jacket.

“You look like a sailor,” I said. “Only thing missing is the white cap.”

“You wish I was a sailor, you queer.”

I laughed, happy as hell to see him after his three-week disappearing act. I reached into my bag for the bottle of Grand Marnier and held it up.

“No cigar, but I do have this.”

“Come on up, my friend.”

I dropped off my bag and grabbed the rent check before heading up. Inside, Gene carried two ice-filled glasses into the living room. I threw the check on the coffee table.

“I’m caught up in rent, so bite me,” I said in the friendly banter of men.

He picked it up, folded it, slid it into his jacket pocket without looking at it.

“You did well, kiddo.”

“It wasn’t easy. Thought I was going to lose my mind there for a few days.”