In his interview, he’s dying.

Worse than dying, which I never thought could be possible.

Distorted. Marked with purple splotches. Terrifying.

I’ll never be able to get his face out of my mind.

My father watches the 6:30 p.m. news. At 7:00 we eat dinner. That’s the way it’s always been and the way it always will be.

My mother drafts me into chopping vegetables. From the living room, my father shouts at the TV: They should be quarantined, all of them!

Stupidly, I ask what he’s talking about. My mother sends me a warning glance. She’s right. I should know better.

Queers, drug addicts, and Haitians, he yells back.

My knife stops midstrike.

Your sainted New York Times even said it, he yells to me. A researcher says you can get it from close contact with family. These deviants like your brother are going to kill us all. You watch.

When I tell James about the news piece, he nods. I know we’re young, he says. But how do you fool around with someone while you’re wondering if letting your guard down could get you sick?

The sainted New York Times, he continues, which is, I think, what I’ll call it from now on, just wrote that the AIDS mortality rate is forty percent and getting worse with four new cases per day.

I understand James’s fear in my head. How do you argue with something like that? But it’s hard to think that I’m really at risk. I haven’t had sex, and I don’t do drugs, and I can barely find Haiti on a map.

But who really knows what will happen in the future, right? I mean, that’s the problem isn’t it? No one knows.

I love my music. I hate my music. I can’t even listen to this crappy song. I should give up. But wait, that lyric is nice and with the right backbeat it would work. Maybe I should record it and send it out?

Becky thinks her mom is using hardcore again. Or maybe the new guy she’s seeing is. Becky isn’t sure, but she found a used needle in the bathroom and Becky is determined not to go through that again, the endless cycle of dragging her mom home from bars and riding her bike around at night, checking alleys.

It’s not like I’m asking her to stay home and bake cookies, she says, but can’t she find a guy who only likes to drink?

It’s my father’s birthday.

As far back as I can remember, we’ve celebrated our family’s events at Mama Patsy’s in the theater district. At first it was some combination of my parents, me and Connor, and my aunt Bettina before she moved to Florida, plus my grandparents before they died.

I kind of thought we’d skip it this time. Given that it will probably be just me and my parents, I’d hoped we would.

But no, my mother reminds me. This is tradition. Family.

As if that really matters anymore.