I have a friend who used to build towering snow mountains with me in the playground three houses down. He was my childhood outdoorsman . . .
He coined the nickname “M & M” there . . .
He slept in a bunk bed with his little brother in their house’s smallest room—big enough to fit only a dresser and swinging room for the built-in closet door. They were like premature dorm roommates . . .
He lived across the street from me but one day left and went to boarding school for a long time in another state. I don’t remember which; I was only eight years old . . .
I’m not sure if I believe in Fate, but we’ve ended up at the same college. I ran into him in the mailroom one day and was in such a state of shock that I couldn’t speak for almost five minutes straight . . .
Strong as an ox, sensitive as a flower unprepared for the frost, he is real . . .
We’re both in love with his calves, each the size of a cantaloupe . . .
He is a man of water, loving winter and competing in swim teams. I imagine him, sometimes, from Atlantis . . .
He drinks coffee only when relaxed, with just a drop of cream and a spoon to stir it by. On his papers there are often traces of his sipping: faint brown circles suggesting a long night’s work . . .
I call him my night owl . . .
He is quite musical and likes to jam on anything and everything that will support a beat and trill out a little melody. “You never fail to amaze me when you do that” I say. He sings, too, but his days as choirboy are riddled in dust . . .
I think the best way to his heart is through his stomach. A chef, he appreciates quality foods and the patience it takes to make them an art form. He once created a three layer chocolate cake for my birthday and hung framed pictures of it, the masterpiece, on his wall . . .
He has brown hair and green eyes and has always stood taller than me . . .
He is the teddy bear who would beat up anybody who did me wrong . . .
“I trust you with my life, why wouldn’t I trust you with my car?” I said, pulling some heartstrings . . .
He falls in love easily and is never without a team of girls fussing over him. He treats his girlfriends like queens and is ceaselessly faithful. Yet, the irony remains in his inability to find a girl worthy to commit to; he won’t admit that he is, indeed, a picky dater . . .
I once asked him to be with me while at a party. “Fuck,” he said. No further inquiry from me was all we needed to know . . .
In America he was born and in America he will stay. I haven’t given up on our vacation in Europe someday, where we’ll haunt youth hostels and travel recklessly on mopeds, amazing the natives with our skill in the Romance languages . . .
Riding high in his pickup truck, he drives that stick shift like it’s just an extension of himself, like he was born to be behind the wheel . . .
He’s miserable alone . . .
He knows not what the future holds, except that he will either take the city by storm with his performance talent or settle in the country that is New England or the West. I hope to follow him . . .
He is my second home . . .
He washes dishes with a smile and once let me capture it on film with a dot of flour on his nose . . .
