“I thought a lot about our conversation at Thayer,” he says while pensively licking his ice cream, after a few moments of silence pass. I watch in desire. “I keep thinking about how much different I’d be if I’d came from a place like yours. Would I still be Christian? Would the trajectory of my life even be the same?”

“Probably not,” I say sarcastically. Worried I have been too sharp, I try to correct myself and say, “I mean, it’s possible it might have been the same, just not likely.”

“That’s true,” he says in nonreactionary agreement. “Which is gnarly to me. How our lives can be so shaped by where we land after we leave God’s grace.”

I hold in my laughter from Bryce’s unapologetic use of the word “gnarly.” He says it exactly as I imagine someone from California would. I don’t even really know what it means, but the word sounds funny. After I suppress my giggles, I begin to wonder how the trajectory of my life would be different if I were white. Would I still have been poor? I know some white people live in poverty, but would I have been one of them? Who might I be if I’d never been called a nigger, or made to feel ugly and unwelcome for the color of my skin? Would I constantly question myself and my right to exist, or would I prance through the world like Manda Panda as if it all were made for me?

After thinking about it for a while, I decide that if I were white and a man, I would walk on water too, just like Jesus. I’d make all sorts of things like computers and world-changing software since the oppression would no longer be consuming most of my energy. I would go to the moon and have a look around, because why not? There’d be no Hills Have Eyes gazes restricting my movement through space. I’d walk around wearing a low-brimmed cowboy hat like Clint Eastwood with a cigarette hanging from my mouth, saying, “Go ahead, make my day.” I’d have no fear since there would never be any consequences for my actions, especially the wrong ones, because I’d own the law and the jail. When it’s time to die, I’d return to my white Jesus with blue eyes and blond hair—the landlord of heaven—and tell him how I pranced around the world tasting all of its glorious fruit. Imagine, I think.

Bryce finishes the last of his ice cream cone and then folds his hands in his lap. I have an overwhelming urge to reach over and grab one. We are sitting close, but our bodies aren’t touching. I want to throw myself on him and dissolve into the heat of his masculinity. Should I try to kiss him? I think to myself.