“Seth was. And Seth was after you and afraid to tell you because he’s your friend. He understood. He knows what it’s like to... have a stain. He knows and you don’t. You don’t.” She sat on the ground under the pine tree, in the litter of twigs and brown needles, her shoulders heaving. Addison stood over her thinking: I don’t know why the fuck I came. There was a tap at the door, and Sully got up to answer it. “Could we talk?” said Chris. Sully opened his mouth, but as happened i...

“So wait a minute?” Sully said, swiping a cigarette from Mason’s pack that was on his bed. “You guys,” he pointed at Swain and Balliol with his cigarette, “and Mercurio were plotting to put me back with Chris?” He held out his hand and Mason gave him a lighter while he squinted and lit it. “Not gonna happen,” he grinned and said through clenched lips. “I think it should,” Mason said. “Oh, fuck! You too?” “See, we all think it’s a good idea.” “I don’t, and Chris hasn’t come to me or...

having some computer problems. white life will be back in a bit -chris (ennarath)

“WELL, THIS IS BAD, ISN’T IT?” Sully said. He and Mason were alone, something that almost never happened and signified either that people had just left, or other people were getting ready to come. “I don’t know what else to say about it,” he said. “I think that’s all that can be said,” Mason told him looking up from a pile of clay. “What is that?” Sully asked him. It was something like a lion, but with a long head, a head like a bird. “It’s a griffon. Or griffin, depending upon ...

“Relax,” Sully said, catching up with him. “Nothing happened. He was just really down too, so I listened to his problems and everything. It was weird. I... have never actually treated him like a person. It’s funny, but I felt really shitty the whole time I was listening to him. I’m supposed to be this sensitive writer and shit and it seriously never occurred to me that Justin’s a real person. I don’t even know if we can do what we’ve been doing again. I don’t know if it would work.” “Are yo...

“I FEEL LIKE YOU’RE KEEPING something from me,” Balliol said flatly. Sully turned to him. “If you are that’s your affair,” Balliol said. “Maybe you need to keep it to yourself. Maybe it’s someplace deep inside of you, and you can’t talk about it yet. I don’t have to know everything.” They were at Sully’s house, a rarity. Tina was still at work and Sully had actually scheduled out this whole day for he and his friend. Justin had called in the morning. It hadn’t even hurt the littlest bit...

Stevie Wonder sang: Your precious sweetheart She’s so faithful She’s so true Oh yeah Her dreams are tumbling Her world is crumbling Because of you Un huh One day you’ll hurt her Just once too much And when you finally loose your tender touch Yeah! yeah! Shoobie doobie doo da me! Her feet may wander Her feet may stray Oh yeah! Shoobie doobie doo da dee! You’re gonna send your baby straight to me! In the middle of something Swain was about to say, Mason lifted a f...

“I was actually thinking about not telling you because I thought ‘It’s not really his business,’” Swain said as she barged into Balliol’s bedroom. “And then I thought, ‘Lincoln will find out sooner or later,’ and also I thought, ‘Well, it kind of is his business’. Besides, I do tell you everything.” Balliol, whose door had been open and was now beginning to regret this, gave Swain a look that said, “Get on with it.” “Oh, yes,” Swain said. “I’m seeing Mason. Not in a serious sense. But ...

MASON AND SULLY WERE BOTH at the house when the MacDonalds arrived. They all stood in the foyer which, Mason noted, was not like the foyers in Addison’s neighborhood, but a great hall with parquet wood floors, portraits of dead family members looking down and the light of mid June shining through a long skylight. “Aunt Ruth, Uncle John, glad to see you. Balliol,” his cousin Herse pronounced his name in an entirely uncongenial voice. “Herse,” Balliol returned in the same voice. He...

They sat on the porch steps side by side saying nothing and then suddenly, they could hear, “ “Oh, God! Oh, shit! Shit! Shit! Philip!” Sully turned around for just a brief second. He wished that Tommy wasn’t his friend so that he could just sit here and watch. Sure in the shit, Philip was fucking this chick on his sofa and, presumably, Tommy’s mother was getting fucked by the big fat buy in the back of the house. Instead of looking, Sully pretended he wasn’t concerned and said, “Why ...

The problem with Savannah was she didn’t deceive herself. She never said she was going to do a thing unless she did, or unless there was a good chance that she might do it. As wonderful as the idea of “going back to school” was, and she could afford it, she remembered what most of her friends did not. That they had been in no way academic and for them school had been nothing but a chore. So Savannah chose to read a lot instead. She had quit her job and was working at her aunt’s boutiqu...

AUNT CHLOE HAD BEEN TASTELESS. She was what people now called ghetto fabulous. Everyone was using that word now and no one knew what it meant. Once, Mason Darrow had been watching an award show and, affront of all fronts, a Black woman had misused ghetto fabulous. She had a voice like a valley girl and Mason didn’t think she was really Black anyway, but she had shown off a bedazzled, expensive cell phone and said, “Isn’t it ghetto fabulous!” No, to have something ghetto fabulous, you coul...

Let him kiss me with the kisses of his mouth and when he does let him be laughing there ought to be a banner over us, unlike all the others all the poor fuckers before you don't be afraid to call it love i see you again and again do you see me i long to speak to you to touch you again to set you as a seal on my arm and lay you down gently by my side

“It does get crazier.” “It does,” Sidney confessed. “And since it will all be out anyway... I’ll tell you. See, Chris went berserk the day that his father told him... Mark told Chris, that he was gay.” “Wait,” Mason was confused. “Mark found out Chris was gay and told him—” “No,” Sidney waved that off. “Mark is gay.” “What?” both boys said at once, and then Balliol said, “Father and son.” “Maybe it’s in the water,” Mason shrugged. Sidney laughed, and then looked at the water glass...

There was a knock on Mason’s door that afternoon. Addison was going to be at the gas station and then with that Bonnie girl and Tommy was doing something with his mother. Balliol had been wrangled for choir practice at Saint George’s, so it couldn’t be one of his friends. He could smell the cigarette smoke from his father’s studio so Sidney was in his zone which left Mason to get the door and while he was contemplating the unfairness of this, he opened the door, fixed a smile on his face and....