And his BK boo, seeing others also.

“That actually works?” I said, turning off of Baltimore, onto Chester, that led towards roomie bro and my old college house, the Barn—along the stretch I used to walk along for cigs every other night, while writing my Bolaño book-thesis; this stretch that walking along made me feel so calm it gave me the initial idea to keep walking—to keep basking in that calm—all the way to California. “Don’t y’all get jealous?”

Ryden thought about this.

“I don’t know,” he said. “Not so much. Surprisingly.

“We just communicate how we’re feeling. We’re good about that.

“Like, ultimately, we don’t own each other,” he said. “I wouldn’t wanna limit her intimate experiences outta that impulse.”

Things were so damn windy, shit was flying all over the place.

Breaking open.

Sloughing.

Bro straight up we were whizzing down these alma-mater-side, Stepford-wife-ass tree-arched lanes I knew so well—so deeply, like from childhood, or from a past life, or from my subconscious—box momentum propelling us forward like a goddamn pendulum, fkng coasting—when a fat gust hit and got the leaves swirling like out of a street-sized blower, or leaf-snow globe.

We looked at each other like Ohhhf!

Like putting hands over mouths incredulous.

Like lil youngins do.

Blowing bits of air out and making choppy, pre-laugh sounds.

The house where Ryden’s roomie’s boss—Ryden’s roomie didn’t go to, but worked at, my alma mater—whose couches we were picking up, was across the street from a kids’ soccer game.

Pulling up in the box, I had to stall till Ryden’s roomies showed. We’d somehow beat em out there.

Woulda felt weird idling out front all those kids, dads swiveling like Tf is this guy.

Except I had Ryden by my side.

Ryden stayed calm.

So I stayed calm.

All you gotta do to fit in is stay calm, I wanted to jot down.

Back at his spot in West, we took a paid lunch break, per union standards.

He copped me a banh mi at the corner store there, with his two roomies.

We were shot from carrying those big-ass couches up the three spiral flights of the Victorian he’d just moved into, that I kept having to convince em would fit.

That we just had to find the right angle.

“Dude—couldn’ta done this without you. Honestly,” he said, cheers-ing his still-wrapped sammie with mine.

I wanted to wolf down my sammie then and there, but Ryden was tryna walk back to eat his, so I followed suit.

His two roomies—gals in their early twenties, fresh outta college—trailed ten, twenty steps behind.

“So this some new shit for them, innit. Being in the city,” I said to Ryden.