It’s tomorrow, the guys says, Make sure you bring a candle.

Then I step back and look around.

Is he giving the flyers to every guy who walks by?

Does he know I’m gay?

Do I want him to?

I’m not even sure it matters. If I’m not sure my dad will let me go see U2 on a school night, he’s never going to let me go to an AIDS march, regardless of what night it’s held.

Besides, I don’t think I’m the demonstrating type. And no way would I go alone.

I walk away without going into the store. I feel too guilty and weirded out to go shopping.

In the end, James pulls some strings and gets me a ticket to see U2, and my father gives in when I tell him they’re a religious band.

Three thousand four hundred of my new best friends and I sweat in a converted movie theater on East 14th Street while Bono waves a white flag and sings his heart out, stopping only during “I Will Follow” when people in the front threaten to get crushed.

The Edge and Adam Clayton swap instruments, and I’m surprised to find myself crying as the whole place sings along to their closing hymn “40.”

Maybe what I told my father wasn’t far off from the truth, I just wish church made me feel this high, as if I were made of music and community and goodwill.

Aside from brief phone conversations, I barely connect with James.

I leave messages for him. Becky leaves messages. When he wakes up, we’re already in school. When we’re home, he’s already out at rehearsals.

He comes all the way uptown in the middle of the night to leave things taped to the outside of the metal mailboxes in our building’s lobby.

Books. Cassettes. Tiny origami shapes: dragons and roses and stars.

My father sneers at these gifts when I don’t get to them first.

My mother smiles sweetly as if they were meant for her.

Becky smirks at me and says, You don’t see him coming to Queens to leave me presents, do you?

Well, it is Queens, I joke. But really, I know James isn’t leaving me gifts as any sort of subtext. I’ve seen this before. He’s restless with a type of endless creativity that forces him to keep moving until he can sleep.

It’s this show, he says when I ask him. I might be in over my head this time.

You say that with every show, I remind him.

He brushes his hair out of his eyes, and I can see the results of his schedule. The dark circles under his light eyes, the chipped polish on his nails.

He says, This one is…never mind. I’m sure it will all work out.

You need a break, I tell him. But I suspect he needs more than that.

You think?

Yeah. Come out with me.

I can’t just…

Yes, you can.

It’s Friday night and I’m trying to play, but the strings on my guitar slip away from my fingers as if they’re greased, and I have to admit to myself that I’m nervous. Not because James is coming with me to Echo. Not because I hope Gabriel is going to be there. Just something in that combination feels like acid in my stomach.