He comes over and stands too close. Head cocked at an odd angle, the dark centers of his eyes, planet-like. I wonder what he’s on.

You should come home with me, he says, under his breath, under the music.

I almost laugh because I’m not the kind of guy that people say things like this to. But I look at the boy and his eyes flare with something like anger or hunger, and I wonder if this is how James feels being hit on all the time and why he doesn’t get involved.

Thanks, but…

He leans in, breath hot on my neck. We live in Brooklyn, he says. We have a coven. We would love you.

I swallow hard and pull back.

No, I say. I’m good.

Figures. The only ones I can attract are nuts.

He extends his middle finger as I turn and walk away. Apparently, drugged-out Brooklyn vampires can’t handle rejection.

This week when I see Connor, I try to keep things light. Usually I drone on about Mom and Dad, and all the things he’s missing at home, which takes massive creativity on my part and usually revolves around food and space, and abundant hot water, because really, what else is there?

This week, I let my brother do all the talking. Connor tells me he’s seeing a drag queen whose stage name is Destiny, but whose day job is in advertising, which really means he sells classifieds for The Daily News. But, Connor says, it’s an honest living. They’ve been meeting every night, but Destiny won’t go back to his apartment because it’s a fifth floor walk-up and he doesn’t want to work that hard. Not for my brother, anyway.

I look at Connor, sure he’s lying, but it’s hard to tell about which part.

When we get up to leave, I grab a plastic bag off the seat and hand it to Connor. I <3 NY the bag declares, but I’m pretty sure it wasn’t designed by someone handing off bread, peanut butter, and the occasional fiver he’s saved from his allowance to his older brother.

I know Connor’s working, but I don’t think food is at the top of his shopping list.

And I know he hates this part because he never says anything, not even thanks.

But he never refuses the bag either, and I guess that’s something.

March 1983

Have you read this?

James tosses a newspaper at me. The New York Native. Even though we’re in my room, with the door shut, and my father is at work, and I know it would take him forty minutes to get here if the subways are running on time and he walks faster than normal and doesn’t stop on the way home for a drink or anything, the thought of how he’d react to finding a gay newspaper in my room makes me break out in a cold sweat.

James…

Read, he says. I’ll throw it in the bin on the corner when I leave.