Over the course of the first two and a half weeks of July, he had been doing well. He was staying sober for the first time in his entire life; he had met some friends, and even started furnishing his tiny studio apartment that his mother begrudgingly cosigned for. 

“If you are anything less than five days early on rent, I’m going to fly to the Midwest and beat you.” 

He had laughed, but he believed her. It was not unlike her to show up out of nowhere, uninvited. Still, he was grateful–to her, and what was happening for him. To him. He wasn’t yet sure of the difference, but he was grateful to be grateful. He considered the possibility that he finally understood what they meant when people claimed to have a new lease on life. All of this after just two weeks of partial hospitalization, recommended to him by his therapist, Tony, a shockingly Italian, gay, man, who gave up a life in costume design to sit in a windowless office and listen to people’s self-hatred and hubris all day. It was not a life Max could imagine enjoying. 

The weeks–well, years, really- leading up to the recommendation had been rough. Tony’s initial reaction, after Max had finally fessed up, was less than therapeutic- a reaction he had apologized to Max for, after explaining that he was human too–and involved a good amount of shocked exclamation. After Tony had regained his footing, Max sat in silence. His fear of further damaging Tony’s trust prevented him from getting angry about his reaction, but he was furious. He felt embarrassed, and had sat on his hands to prevent himself from hanging up the video call. Eventually, Tony had found a good program that would help Max learn how to deal with his shit–yet another thing that Max was grateful for. 

The car that he borrowed to drive to his day program, located up in the northern suburbs, had no air conditioning, one working window, and no working speakers. In the mornings, before the temperatures crawled into the triple digits, the drive was pleasant. Max had even begun to look forward to speeding up the highway at 8am–waking early, a feat that had not been managed before he had stopped drinking. But at 4pm the sun hung swollen and sweltering directly over Max and his broken car. 

Currently, the traffic is so severe that his Google Maps app tells him a 40 minute drive will take over two hours, from start to finish. Max notes with annoyance that he is parked in gridlock not even five minutes away from his program building. Panic about being trapped on the highway swells through him, and he swallows hard to rid his throat of a lump. He unbuckles his seatbelt and reaches into the catty-corner seat to grab a water bottle. Taking his foot off of the brake he twists fully, grabbing it after three heaves forward. Panting, he buckles his seatbelt and frowns at the lack of movement in front of him. A purple minivan–was it purple? Or maroon? Max laughed under his breath, knowing that Tony would have chided him for not knowing the difference–laid on its horn for what seemed like two minutes. Max, although irritated, couldn’t blame the driver. Heat makes people crazy. 

He had been hearing about alcoholics being told to call other alcoholics. He had been too scared, mostly because of the possibilities, and because he didn’t know what to say. He barely knew about being an alcoholic–what if they decided to test him? What if they can smell his beginner’s stench? His fear tangles with his panic and he unbuckles again. He was beginning to feel claustrophobic. A group of kids walks by his car, giggling freely at the absurd notion of walking on the highway. Max cracks open his door, feeling the rush of the hot air into the car. It feels better than no air. He slowly stands up out of the car, stretching and becoming hyper-aware of the sweat that has surely soaked through his shirt. Fuck it, he thinks, and pulls the shirt off over his head. One of the young kids elbows her friend, and whistles. 

Max ducks back inside the car, searching for his cellphone. He had tried charging it when he left his program, but the wire, or maybe the outlet, was faulty. He finds it wedged under the passenger seat, and checks the battery- 16%. Was it enough for a call? His program therapist told him she would be checking in to see if he had called anyone. He could lie, but he was worried that it would feel like a step backward. He would just have to live without a phone for the drive home. Like the olden days, he chuckles to himself. I look like a dipshit, laughing to myself, he thinks. No wonder I got sent to the funny farm. The “funny farm”? Jesus–I sound like my father. Max quickly finds the number of a kid he met on his second day of program. He can’t be older than 22, but has a surprising amount in common with Max. He is well-read, a regular smart-ass, and never seemed to be upset by the disturbing personal facts coming out of his mouth. Max had remarked to his therapist how even-keeled the kid seemed, and how Max wished he could be the same way. His therapist warned him that laughter was not indicative of wellness. Max had a lot to learn. He dials the number and crosses his fingers that Sammy wouldn’t pick up. After the second ring, the line clicks. Sammy’s voice crackles, “Dude!”. 

Max remembers the conversation, more or less. Sammy’s dad wants to help fix up the truck. Sammy’s sister came home from St. Paul this morning, and that’s why he didn’t show up to program. Sammy’s truck needed a new something or other, Max hadn’t really heard and didn’t want to ask him to repeat himself. Sammy misses doing heroin. Max half-listens, staring out across the makeshift parking lot, as more people finally spill out of their cars to see what was going on. From back where they were all stranded, though, it seemed like an endless river of Hondas and Toyotas. The beginning of the traffic must exist somewhere, Max thinks. Hey, that’s a great line. I should write that down. He blinks sweat out of his eyes. It’s hot enough that his head keeps rushing and making him feel dizzy. His focus snaps back when Sammy suddenly turns the conversation on Max. He wants to know how his first two weeks have been, if he’s doing anything later, if he misses drinking. Max feels a small twinge of appreciation. He squints up at the sky to focus. 

“Uh- Yeah. They’ve been good, I’m not doing anything later, I miss drinking sometimes. Like right now, for instance.”

He and Sammy make plans to hang out at his apartment later. Max forgets to tell him that he doesn’t have a couch yet. He checks the battery percentage on his phone: 3%, and chucks it back into the car, cringing at the thud it makes against the passenger door. The driver of the purple minivan is locked out of her car, and the toddler inside is laughing at the way she tries to get him to open the door. Max raises his eyebrows and shrugs at the mom, hopeful she recognizes it as a gesture of help. She rolls her eyes, as if to say, toddlers, am I right? Max awkwardly smiles. She turns back to the toddler. Max walks a few feet, stopping at the sight of the group of kids sitting directly behind his car. They squeal and laugh, scattering away from him. One girl turns around and stares slyly, rubbing both of her thumbs and pointer fingers together, as if miming that she is going to pinch his nipples. She bursts into cacophonous laughter, sprinting to join her friends. Max stares.

As he walks further from his car, he hears the faint and unmistakable sound of reggaeton. Not far from the exit from program sits a group of eight men, passing a bottle around. Max laughs, more out of absurdity than anything, but the men take it as a request to join. They wave him over, offer him the bottle, and he shakes his head, making a mental note to tell Sammy of his win. He tells them he has a sour stomach today, to which one of them laughs, “what better cure than whiskey, bro?” Max leaves them laughing. 

He turns back to his car, fearful that traffic will suddenly disperse, leaving him parked on a busy highway, liable to be smashed by an oncoming truck. He walks quickly. A man talking on a cellphone stops him, says that his buddy is up by exit 42 and that it’s starting to clear up, so get back to your car, fast. Max thanks him, and obliges. He sees that the mom has made it back into her minivan, somehow. Maybe three-year-olds are more capable of opening doors than he thought. He makes a second mental note, to ask Sammy what he knows about kids. 

Max collapses back onto the driver’s seat of his car. He stares dully into space until a symphony of horns startles him. The cars in front of him have begun to move. He wishes he could check Google Maps to see how long it would take him, but the navigation voice gave him a migraine and he recently stopped checking his phone while driving. He turns the key in the ignition. His door stays swung open while he begrudgingly clicks into his seatbelt again, burning his bicep on the hot metal buckle. The skin raises red, and Max curses, sucks his teeth. When he notices the lanes start to crawl forward, he pulls his car door shut.

Almost immediately, the sweat from his hairline starts to bead and roll down, stinging his eyes. Max searches for a piece of paper to fan his face with, finding only the receipt for one of the last bottles he had hastily purchased three weeks ago. He had spent the entire day trying to make the air conditioner work in his studio, to no avail. After riding an urge of fury until he had smashed the unit into the chipped wooden floors, he had thought, well, at least now I have something to celebrate. His bravado had been enough. Max shakes the memory away and folds the receipt into a sturdier square. After a few futile attempts to wave air into his face, he crumples the receipt. He will just have to suffer through it.

Max glances quickly at the clock. 5:43. He runs through the mental checklist of things left to do today, but nothing comes to mind. He has already forgotten about Sammy coming over. And suddenly, as if someone had shouted it into his ear, he remembers a 5:30 therapy appointment scheduled for today, haphazardly planned before patient or therapist knew what Max’s life would look like now. He was late- 2 minutes until they billed for missing the session. Keeping his eyes on the inching traffic, Max runs his hand along the floor of the car until his pinky finger jams painfully into the corner of his cellphone. He checks the battery- 1%. Frantically, he unlocks his phone, looking through his contacts for the name he had hidden Tony under, scrolling past it twice in his haste. He finds it, labeled under Mary Nicholson, the pseudonym he had previously saved old boyfriends under while they were dating, before he had come out of the closet. Max hits the call button, and the phone rings once before it is disconnected by his phone dying. 

He swears, loudly. This meant a $150 missed appointment fee, plus the bills from program that insurance wasn’t covering- he was fucked. He hadn’t worked in weeks. He was already cutting breakfast to save money for rent, and his mother had made it clear that she would not be lending him money again. He makes a mental note–having already forgotten the first two- to ask Sammy how he was making ends meet. 

The flow of the cars in front of Max starts to pick up pace until he is just barely able to make out the cause of the slow down. Two dozen emergency vehicles crowd around, the sun reflecting through their flashing lights and casting spots into Max’s car. He can make out pieces of the scene– an overturned stretcher, a car split almost directly down the middle, an engine on fire. Max shudders, not having realized the tension climbing across his shoulders and up his neck. He breathes in stale, hot air through his nose, and propels it forcefully through pursed lips, like he was taught in program. For a minute, he feels steady. Then he sees it. 

At first he isn’t sure what he’s looking at. Max falsely assumes a piece of the victim’s bumper has lodged itself against the guard rail. It isn’t until his car inches closer that he realizes that he’s looking at a human torso. The body spills onto the asphalt, impaled on a piece of jutting metal. The head, although missing, seemed to loll to the side, and both arms snapped backwards at inhuman angles, as if trying to distance themselves from the body. Max realizes that the pieces of pink scattered glass he had been looking at wasn’t glass at all, but shattered bone. 

Bile threatens to push from the bottom of his throat. He takes another deep breath, but his body reacts without him. He gags, and warm acid sprays out of his nose and mouth, dribbling down his shirtless chest and coating his steering wheel. He curses, looking for his shirt to mop it up while he continues to drive. 

Out of the corner of his eye, he notices a child, around the age of seven. The boy is staring up at a woman who stares, stunned, at the asphalt, talking quietly to a cop. Something hooks deep into Max’s stomach. He pulls over. 

Without thinking, he turns the ignition off and leaps out of his car. His ears fill with a rushing static noise as he walks briskly towards the boy and the woman. Before he can approach, the boy takes off, weaving between parked ambulances and pieces of the car he doesn’t recognize as his dad’s. Max watches, horrified, as the boy nearly runs right into traffic. The woman does not notice. The boy walks back towards her. Max is desperate to hold him, to hold the woman. He sees no reason not to insert himself into their lives. His eyes flood and he blinks hard to release the tears into falling. An EMT approaches him, and asks if Max is part of the family. For a moment, he considers saying yes, I am, so that he can run towards her, and pick the boy up, and they could be together for a moment. Before he answers, the boy runs past, forcing the officer to lunge and snag him before he is killed by a car. The boy bursts into tears, looking up at Max with sad, spilling eyes. Max looks confusedly at the boy- he knows him, he feels. Those eyes, he thinks, what the fuck. I know him. The rushing in Max’s ears returns. He grabs the boy’s hand, and with a gentle tug, leads him back to the woman. She continues to stare down as they approach, yanking the boy towards her into an embrace that the child settles into. Max watches from a few feet away. 

“Sorry, um. For your loss.” 

The woman stares through him, and laughs derisively through her nose. She says nothing, but looks towards the piece of vehicle containing the driver’s seat. She glances down at the boy, who’s arms are wrapped as far as they can stretch around her waist, and looks wearily back at Max. 

“What am I supposed to do with this one?” she gestures at the boy. 

Max shakes his head. He doesn’t know about this kind of stuff. She waits for him to answer, but when no words come, she drifts away, shoving the boy off of her. Max watches as the child stumbles backward. Both boy and Max watch as the woman glides, as if already a ghost, towards the torso. As her blood-curdling scream pierces up into the smokey air, the boy turns to Max. 

“That’s my dad.”

Max nods. He asks the boy what he knows about what happened. The boy shrugs, before launching into a recapitulation of a television episode he had watched this morning. Max listens, numbly, glancing up occasionally at the woman. He interrupts as the boy is explaining the anatomy of a talking owl. 

“Do you want to be with your mom?” Max points to the woman. 

The boy says that she’s actually his dad’s best friend, that he doesn’t know his mom because she didn’t want him when he was a baby and now he lives with his dad and his Papa, except his Papa goes to work in Japan sometimes which is a country in the ocean and he is sleeping right now, probably. Max nods again, letting the boy monologue about his Papa, barely listening. 

“Papa changed his job from making clothes to being a therapist. He is like a doctor, but with his words. Sometimes, though, he still makes me some shirts, or some pants. One time he made-”

Max interrupts. Your Papa is a therapist. He doesn’t ask. He asks the boy if he knows his Papa’s name. The boy says Tony, like the tiger. All of the moisture in Max’s mouth goes dry. The rushing in his ears comes back. The pictures hanging behind Tony’s head on video calls, that he puts up when he flies overseas for work, the boy, of course. Of course. His head spins. He is suddenly struck with how inappropriate it is for him to be here. He asks the boy his name. Jackson. Had he heard Tony say his name before? Probably not. Had he talked about his husband? What was his name again- Gary? Grant? He couldn’t ask the boy. The woman wails too loudly, and Jackson claps his hands over his ears. Max ushers him over to the curb, offering to sit with him, asking about his television show. As Jackson launches eagerly back into a plot involving pirates, and islands made of candy, Max studies the boy’s face. He moves like Tony does, gesticulating like a pure-bred Italian. Every so often, he drops an R, softening words the way Tony does when he is lecturing to Max . Max can’t help himself- he feels a surge of love, or appreciation, or fear run through him. 

“Do you know what a pedo-flier is?”

Max’s blood turns cold. He looks strangely at the boy. Where did you hear that word? The boy explains how his Dad and Papa argued about someone being a pedo-flier. Papa knows one, he says. Jackson adds glumly that his Dad wouldn’t tell him what it was, even though Papa wanted to. They fought, he adds. He asks again if Max knows what it is. Max looks at him, silently. He feels weird, like the hook in his stomach has suddenly ripped loose a stream of ice cold blood into his body. He debates how learning what a pedophile is on the night that his Dad is killed might be traumatic for the boy. He reasons with himself, however, that it’s going to be traumatic no matter what, and he didn’t like to lie to children. 

“It’s pronounced pedo-phile, but… sure. I know what it is. It’s… when an adult really loves a kid.”

Jackson considers this, and looks back at Max. He notes that his Dad and Papa and Mara, the woman screaming, really love him. So they are-?

“No, no. It’s…when an adult loves a kid but does some bad stuff to them. I- I don’t know. It’s bad, I guess.” 

Jackson says if the adult loves the kid why would they do bad stuff to them. It doesn’t make any sense. Max agrees, willing the pounding behind his eye to subside. Jackson asks if Max knows a pedo-flier. Max looks out at the wreckage for a minute before looking back at Jackson. His eyes travel over his hair and skin, bleached and freckled from the July sun. Oily from the afternoon humidity. He replies, yeah, I do, actually. Jackson is quiet. 

Max stands up, brushing the gravel from the seat of his pants. Mara has quieted down. Jackson plays with a piece of plastic, no doubt fragmented during the explosion that decapitated his father. Max takes a deep breath in, letting it out through pursed lips. He slowly walks back to his car. 

When he buckles his seatbelt, the metal has cooled off in the setting of the sun. He realizes he has no idea what time it is. He checks the red mark on his arm from earlier, but it has faded completely. Fear ripples through him that he will have no way to prove to himself that this ever happened. Perhaps it’s for the best, he thinks. He glances one last time toward the wreckage, watches Mara hug Jackson on the curb. The twinge resurfaces, and as he turns the key in the ignition, tears roll down his face. 

Max pulls out onto I-94. Jackson’s face floats to the surface of his memory, and he cries with the image of him. He drives, breathing heavier, until cloudy white drips down into the leg of his shorts. Max drives home in silence, the stench of his sex and stale vomit steaming through his broken car.