I am with a group of mostly gay guys and a couple pretty cool women when I see them first--like small, stout ducks, only white with marbly blue and a little green--Earth-coloured, come to think of it. They like to hum around in dozens or so, and land on slanty sun-tin roofs. Oh yeah--bright yellow feet.They are on a roof which somehow slants into the inside of the house were halfway in and out of! Sunny, feels good and vibrant here. Were going out. The guy who likes me and keeps touching me--feels good, makes me gasp, and yet I hesitate, because I do not trust him nor am thrilled by his mind particularly--is not the same guy whom, over the course of the evening stopping at different peoples houses and living rooms, I come to have an interest in. When the guy who has attached himself to me puts his arm around me on the couch, I look across the room, see the other guy is looking, roll my eyes as if to say, really, Id rather do this with you. My cross the room guy plays with some drums, oversize bongos. He gives them to me, I play them some. I try to go fast but it is like my hands are spring-loaded in the other direction from which I try to move: as if this worlds tai-chi-esque resistance is many times greater than in the world im used to. Then my other guy picks up another drum, with tension cords he squeezes and releases, a la talking drum, to make a beautiful simple melodic rhythm. Oh my god! Are you doing that? I ask, getting delighted. Still, the first guy manages to stick by me, and rubs my ass with his fingers. Again: feels gasping-good, but I dont quite like because its him. I relax a little, and let him do it a little any way. 1133 E Boxelder St Hes maybe five years old when I first meet him. Whats your name again, I ask. Uh! Dylan! he says, exasperated slightly. Oh yeah, I say, you told me that last week. Im sorry I forgot your name, I just forget things a lot. He says its okay. Some of his family or neighbors can be heard making loud, possibly angry or threatened black-women noises inside one or two of the shambly houses in front of which were perched, on concrete steps in front of old Boxelder St. The windows of the houses are almost-black opaque. The sunlight out here is wan but good. It turns however, fluidly and stealthily to night. Dylan is crying a little. Whats wrong? He tries to explain but I am not quite getting it. He says he has something, or they gave him something, or else took something away. Something about who he is or was. You mean you have a fake identity? No, not exactly.... Something to do with your family? I ask. You mean the Barruss? he says. Im not sure thats exactly the spelling, but I didnt want to ask and look dumb and interrupt. Someone, somewhere, perhaps a nebula of people, have all but convinced him he has no potential, no future, no reality it seems. We are going for a walk. I was going to show him something, but I cannot now remember what it was. I tell him I think he has a lot of potential, is very bright, etc. We end up in a neighborhood bar, having walked around the block: east, then north, then west, then back a half east only thru the alley so we go in thru the back door to a bar whose front is on the north side of Boxelder St, more or less opposite where we were sitting before. It is open mike nite. There is a goodly crowd, majority white people as i recall. Dylan precedes me thru the back room where Laura and someone kinda like Ann are sitting on big stools with a large-ish group some of whom I vaguely recognize. He goes on into the back part of the front room, where a gently rollicking blues band plays. Sounds good. He plops him down, having to clamber up first, on a bar stool. A pretty lady in a soft long denim dress kinda looks at him amused, bemused, looks at me, I look back not harshly, she seems satisfied that its all right even if a little weird. I find a seat on the floor about two or three back from where Dylan is, and listen to the music. Laura and the Ann-ish girl poke me and tease me because my upper thigh is showing something fierce, cuz Im wearing those green sweatpants-shorts that I cut off way short. I kinda laugh-shrug-smile. The blues band gets done. I am thinking maybe Ill get in trouble with Dylans family for bringing him into a bar. That could look really bad. But Im not feeding him beer or anything. And besides, if they cared so much, where the hell were they? Why did they leave him crying, ignored, alone? The next musician is a young woman who employs a high, tight, airy falsetto. I hate it when she does that. She has a round head, bangs, a strong smile. Several people get up from their tables, make their way towards the back, presumably to leave. She doesnt seem fazed or to notice particularly. A guy in a ruddy-salmon coloured heavy cotton shirt, with wild-frizzed blond hair, touches my shoulder. Where were you going to get that turtle? He asks. I touch his shoulder, so our arms are gently twining. It feels nice, although I am a tiny bit reserved about the guy. He suggests I get the turtle right in the middle of my chest. But I open the top buttons of my shirt and show him the spider already sitting there. The guy says something about something his mother, whom i think i met with the gay guys earlier, told him, that pertained somehow to this. Maybe on my back or shoulder somewhere, I tell him.