“Sometimes I think I’m still the kid that got off that bus ten years ago. Scared, confused. Still looking over my shoulder, still waiting for the other shoe to fall. Afraid of everything.” He looked at his friend. “That’s not who I want to be for Nick. I want to be brave.”

“Oh, honey, your family threw you out with the trash and you picked yourself up and came here and made all this for yourself.” He spread his arms, embracing the room and the city visible in the windows. “You are brave, Billy.”

“You don’t know everything. I’ve done things I’m not proud of. Sex things.”

“I know all about that.”

Bill stared at him. “You do?”

Waldo finished his drink. “It’s a small town full of gossipy queens. Whatever you do with your body is your business.” He handed his glass to Bill. “Here, mix me another since I’m drinking for two.” Bill poured champagne and orange juice into the glass and brought it to Waldo. “Thanks, hon. So, you like sex rough sometimes, you don’t have to be ashamed of it.”

Bill tried to find words to express that it wasn’t the sex itself, but what he was thinking when he did it; that the sex was not for pleasure but a punishment. The best he could do was, “I wanted someone to hurt me.”

“Billy, we’ve been hurt enough, don’t you think?” Waldo said. “We don’t have to go looking for it. Listen, if this boy makes you happy, hang on to him. You deserve to be happy. We all fucking do.”

The door opened and there were steps up the stairs and then Nick appeared with Mrs. Donohue. She and Waldo saw each other and he got up and scooped her in his arms. Nick stood behind them, his eyes bright and happy at their reunion.

“Oh my God, Mrs. D.,” Waldo was saying. “I swear you look younger every time I see you.”

She laughed. “You are such a liar, Waldo, but I love it.”

Waldo looked at Nick. “You must be Nick. I’m Waldo, Billy’s mom. Come here and give me a hug.”

As he watched them hug, Mrs. Donohue beaming at all of them, Bill thought with simple and complete joy, this is my family.

10.

10.

I stepped into a dark, narrow hallway and followed Adam into a small living room furnished monastically with a couch, coffee table and a single chair but also a large screen TV and expensive sound system. The street noise squawked through an open window that framed the neon sign of a shabby hotel called the Excelsior. I noticed a series of photographs on the wall above the nondescript sofa, striking black-and-white shots of wooden buildings that looked like barracks, a long room filled with narrow beds, and an unpainted wooden wall carved with Chinese characters.

“What are these?” I asked Adam.