Dreaming Home by Lucian Childs

Author:Lucian Childs
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Biblioasis
Published: 2023-04-10T00:00:00+00:00

I hurried up the Muni subway station’s broad steps, worried over being late for dinner with Kyle. Even the slightest inconvenience he took as a personal affront. That afternoon, our meeting ran long at the mayor’s office. The feds released a boatload of money for prevention outreach and our two staffs were banging out the details.

I rounded the corner onto 18th Street to find Kyle slouched against the front of the Chinese restaurant. Ever the contrarian, he sported a green polyester bomber jacket, zipped to the collar — the hoodie inside cowling his head.

“Hello,” I said, “this is 1992 calling. You’re dressed so, what? ’84? ’83?”

“It’s comfortable and inexpensive. Wasn’t that the point?”

“Actually, I think it was to ape heteronormative concepts of traditional masculinity.” I gave him a quick, hungry kiss.

“You’re late, Mr Smarty Pants.”

“I called the job shack, but you’d gone already.”

“I wanted to switch out of my dusty clothes, so I left early. The commute’s a bitch.”

“I wish you could find something in the city.”

“It was hard enough finding this job. Well, I didn’t find it.”

“Technically.”

“Rebeca had to call in a lot of chits. I can’t ask her to do that again.”

Rebeca Vasquez, real estate agent to big East Bay and San Francisco developers. Also Kyle’s best friend, also foul-mouthed, improper, doing her best sassy puertorriqueña.

“Besides,” Kyle said, “business over there is gangbusters with all the rebuilding.”

“People died in that fire last year, Kyle. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to live there again.”

“You’ve seen the view.”

“I know, but to be reminded each day of one’s mortality.”

“Hard to believe you, of all people, would say something like that.”

Over Kyle’s shoulder, long fingers of fog snaked around the base of Sutro Tower, the giant robot-looking thing on top of Twin Peaks. Soon the Castro neighborhood would be choked with mist, the houses mysterious hulks, indistinct.

“Come on,” he said, “I’m getting cold.”

I pushed open the door and we stepped inside the narrow restaurant. A single aisle ran down the center; heavy wooden cubicles were arrayed on either side. The smell of garlic and fish sauce wafted from the kitchen. The synth-pop band Erasure crackled from a pair of blown speakers.

We slid into one of the booths, the high enclosure cave-like, the benches hard and uncomfortable. When the waiter brought the menus, I waved them away and placed the order. “Oh, and two Tsingtao,” I said over my shoulder as he walked off. I turned and met Kyle’s scowling face. “I’m sorry. Did you want something else? We always get the same thing.”

His look, somewhere between a pout and a grin, I read as resignation. Then he laughed and blew me a kiss across the table. The changeability of his moods frequently gave me whiplash.

“I don’t mean to emasculate you,” I said.

“Rebeca says it’s important for May-December relationships to be on an equal footing.”

“You and I, we’re more May-August, I think. September, at the very latest.”

A smile blossomed across his boyishly handsome face. This was the affable guy I preferred, warm-hearted, funny even, when he let down that long brassy-brown hair.

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