But soon as it did, without thinking, I bounded down the steps and grabbed him off her. Then hugged him to me when he tried to hit me. He was going “I’ll dog you like this for the rest of your life, bitch. Don’t EVER text another man while you in my house.”

Towering over her.

She a crumpled heap on the sidewalk, barefoot and tear-strewn.

I blocked his path, going Nope, nope, no dude, chill dude, breathe, walk it off, drive it off, get the fuck outta here. You’ll thank me later.

Till he, finally, agreed to take off for a drive.

Roomie bro and I made sure K made it back inside OK.

Then returned to my stoop.

Panting, sweating. Keyed up off all that action.

Old heads down the block sorta cheering me for stepping in, but same time weren’t about to do anything. I mean, they were old heads; stepping in wasn’t their role.

After some silence, roomie bro went Wait, what were you saying?

I laughed.

“Nothing, dude. Nothing important.”

—August 2020

Harlem, NY

Philly in the Time of FUCCBOI

Works Cited

The Return (2010) by Roberto Bolaño

Society of the Spectacle (1967) by Guy Debord

Motherhood (2018) by Sheila Heti

Trip (2017) by Tao Lin

Food of the Gods (1993) by Terence McKenna

Philadelphia (2017), reprinted in Some of the Times (2020) by Gina Myers

Evolution (2018) by Eileen Myles

The Gay Science (1887) by Friedrich Nietzsche

“Bloody Mother Fucking Asshole” (2005) by Martha Wainwright

Works Mentioned

I’m Gay (2011) by Lil B

Painting Pictures (2017) by Kodak Black

2666 (2004) by Roberto Bolaño

Invisible Cities (1974) by Italo Calvino

Don Quixote (1620) by Miguel de Cervantes

Scorpion (2018) by Drake

Chronic 2001 (1999) by Dr. Dre

Signed to the Streets (2013), Signed to the Streets 3 (2018) by Lil Durk

The Story of a New Name: My Brilliant Friend Book 2 (2013) by Elena Ferrante

The Language of the Goddess (1989) by Marija Gimbutas

How Should a Person Be? (2010) by Sheila Heti

Mein Kampf (1933) by Adolf Hitler

The Elementary Particles (2000) by Michel Houellebecq

Blue Is the Warmest Color (2013), directed Abdellatif Kechiche

My Struggle: Book Five (2017) by Karl Ove Knausgaard

My Struggle: Book Six (2018) by Karl Ove Knausgaard

“Petty Wap” (2018) by Young M.A

“Two 16s” (2017) by Z Money

Killing Commendatore (2017) by Haruki Murakami

The Cape (1976) by Kenji Nakagami

Come Over When You’re Sober, Pt. 1 (2017) by Lil Peep

Rontel (2013) by Sam Pink

Savage Mode (2016) by 21 Savage

The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel (2017), created Amy Sherman-Palladino

Infinite Jest (1996) by David Foster Wallace

“Starboy” (2016) by The Weeknd

Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus (1922) by Ludwig Wittgenstein

“RIP Roach” (2016) by XXXTENTACION, Ski Mask The Slump God

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Acknowledgments

Ty ty ty to Giancarlo DiTrapano for not only letting me write how I talk, but encouraging me to.

That shit there.

Man.

I can’t even.

To all the day 1s who read this shit as written each month, about the year’s previous. Tren, Eric, Viva, Nick.