The Gulch’s country-western theming is reinforced by upbeat string band music from Karaoke Bill’s watchtower outside. Strangely, it reminds me of home—a shithole, but a familiar shithole. Familiarity is what I crave most. These other campers aren’t fellow queers, they’re aliens—cold, remote life-forms of a hostile planet where I’ve found myself marooned. Molly and I spot each other at the breakfast line. She’s also an alien, but a more familiar alien than the rest. We were shackled together in a boat, we escaped into the ocean, and we watched as we were forced to delete the most special people in the world from our phones. A witness to the worst moment in your life can’t help but generate some level of intimacy. With no better options, Molly and I wordlessly, instinctively, gravitate to the same table.

We don’t know what to say to each other, except to share the same petrified expressions that scream, I didn’t dream it, I’m still here.

A minute later, breakfast arrives. Darcy Culpepper, the rail-thin girl in the bob wig we met last night, busses plates of sausage and piping hot scrambled eggs to each table. Another Black female camper I don’t recognize trots after Darcy with an enormous percolator pot. Coffee Girl—a large, beaming young woman with her hair barrette-pinned into a poodle-puff bun—introduces herself as Lacrishia Sims. She pours steaming coffee into our tin cups and then tosses me a bashful smile before moving on to other tables.

Nightlight turned two of its Black campers into waitresses—I shouldn’t be surprised. This camp has a boner for freezing us inside a snow globe of detestable, old-timey America. Just how things are, here in the South Pacific Gulch!

Finally, Darcy and Lacrishia sit to enjoy their breakfasts, and I no longer feel rude digging in. The fork is in my hand, about to dive into savory delights, when the room stands and places their hands over their hearts. Molly and I frown at the realization: prayer time. We pray before we eat, no matter how starved we might be. Ten campers and a dozen staff members sing heartily together:

“Oh, the Lord is good to me,

And so I thank the Lord

For giving me the things I need,

The sun and the rain and the apple seed.

The Lord is good to me!”