I miss him.

I make my way to James’s apartment. He’s two years older than me, went to at least three schools I know of, and none could keep him interested enough to show up for anything more than tests. Tests that he passed with honors, but still. Even those weren’t enough to make the schools happy. There were meetings with his parents, and meetings with expensive private tutors, and meetings with the psychologists who accused him of acting out. All those meetings never changed anything; James was still James. In the end, each of the schools decided that he might be better suited “elsewhere.”

He got his GED, and now his parents, who moved to a sprawling mansion on the water in Connecticut, think he’s attending NYU. They deposit his “tuition” into a bank account in the city, out of which he draws a seemingly always-available allowance.

James has made a name for himself in the underground world of performance art and lives in a Hell’s Kitchen rent-stabilized share: four guys in three rooms and a snake named Boris in the tub.

Snakes aren’t my thing, James told me when he moved in, but at least we’ll never have to worry about rats.

The buzzer to James’s building is busted, so when I get there, I call up from the pay phone outside the bodega across the street. A cat weaves its way through the fruit display, one bitten ear twitching against the snow, tail dusting a frozen pyramid of apples.

James picks up the phone, and I have to scream over the sound of trumpets and bongos leaking, along with a stream of pot smoke, out of a car window at the stoplight next to the phone booth.

Let me in.

What?

Let me in.

Michael?

The car pulls away.

Let me in.

Oh, why didn’t you say that?

I shrug, even though James can’t see me.

I wait for James in the vestibule.

This is poetic snow, he says, running down the stairs, wrapping an impossibly long scarf around his neck, It hasn’t had time to become tabloid slush.

Connor gave me a fake ID last year for my birthday. I only wanted it so I could get into this club, The Echo. Regardless of what the ID says, I won’t be legal to drink for three years, but that’s beside the point anyhow, because I wanted to go there to dance, not to get drunk. Even before then, the bouncer, Freddy, had to know I was underage, but New York is sticky hot in summer, and really, what did he care if one more I’m-queer-but-nobody-really-knows-it kid added his sweat to the already wet brick walls of the basement club?

Now, I don’t need to wait in line to get in, and they don’t ask to see my ID. I love The Echo. If I wanted to, I could be anyone in there. A playboy. A hard-ass. A romantic. I could be a drag queen if I learned to walk in heels.