Chapter 6

Atransitory hope that Matti would stop by the shop visited and revisited me over the course of that Monday morning. Even though the invitation I'd extended was not specifically to see me, a different kind of hope plagued my thoughts, presumptuous and eager; perhaps he would drop in to see me. Could I have made an impression on him just as he had on me? It was conceivable, though I didn't want to put all my eggs in that basket. Why set myself up for disappointment?

Thoughts of him—the naturalness of his stride, the confidence in his tone, the definition dotting his frame—played in my head like some annoyingly handsome ping-pong ball that someone kept paddling against my brain, constant and unrelenting. I had become fixated in the most casual of ways. I didn't want the dashing thoughts to stop, but there was no reason for them to continue. Maybe he'd come by, and maybe he wouldn't. I'd be fine either way.

There was something intriguing about him though. Something appealing. He was attractive, but it was more than that. It was almost as if I knew him, as if I'd known him in some previous iteration of my life. I couldn't shake the feeling that we were supposed to meet just then, but why? It was silly. An incomprehensible, cosmic fantasy to be pulled from the script of some sappy, clichéd rom-com. A visit the day after a chance meeting on the street would have been expected, a bit too formulaic. I was almost glad he didn't drop by.

"Any messages for me?" I asked Shay, closing the front door behind me, making my way to the counter.

"No, booboo," she snarked, rearranging cat food cans on a shelf, employing the nickname she used for most everyone she deemed as overly eager. "And remember, I gotta be outta here by four today."

Shay watched over the shop for a few hours each Monday, Wednesday, and Friday while I was out making my rounds, walking dogs, running errands. Our professional relationship had spanned a couple of years, giving way to a more amicable type of bond over time, time she spent attending school to become a vet tech.

"Yeah, no problem. I can handle the pickups and closing on my own. What time is your exam?"

"Six thirty. I need to get there early to study though. Percy said he could help you with the pickups. His last client is at four."

Percy handled the grooming on Mondays and Tuesdays when Vonnie was off.

"Sounds good. You know you can study here when we're not busy, right?"

Shay wasn't the type to slack at work. She was more of the if-there's-time-to-lean, there's-time-to-clean type. And playing into the trope of the unsupportive boss didn't suit me. It just wasn't my nature. She was trying to make something of herself. Who was I to stand in her way?

"I know." She lofted her voice facetiously. "But then these shelves would be a hot mess, wouldn't they?"

I simply laughed, dropping my hefty key ring onto the glass countertop, the weight of the robust stash of keys for entrance into the homes of clients, the shop, my own condo clanging with the force. That clang echoed through the relatively quiet space, briefly interrupting the soft sound of soul music serving as background noise to a couple of dogs innocently barking at each other upstairs. I was back in for the afternoon, in the place that had become my second home. Percy was hard at work bathing a springer, and Maestro was refereeing the half-hearted disagreement between the barking dogs, so I helped Shay finish stocking the shelves.

The afternoon grew quiet—like most Monday afternoons—so after organizing, I holed up in my tiny office and opened the Chatter app on my phone. The stark realization that came to me the night before—that I was too caught up in my daydreams, too in my head to experience some kind of meaningful romantic life—had struck a nerve. After Nate, I made an attempt to open myself up, to learn to trust again. I made a hesitant attempt to meet people, to date. It was what one did, so I did it. All of it blew up in my face for reasons I didn't understand at the time, so I stopped. I focused on myself instead. I turned to sex. But even sex had become boring, the hookups without meaning, the tricks almost interchangeable. An impulse had been itching at me lately, some latent drive to feel a connection with someone, to try again. Avoidance helped for a while, but that enterprising inclination inched its way up, slowly and steadily, until it was no longer deniable, some vague notion I could ignore. The need had become persistent and driven.

Since no one seemed to meet people in person anymore, the hookup app I used to get off seemed like my best option to casually approach someone. Dating websites seemed too involved. The profiles one had to construct seemed so beyond the realm of cursory conversation.

Where do you see yourself in five years?What is your biggest regret?If you had your dream job, what would it be?

Who had the time to devote to such self-reflection and conjecture, especially when it would likely result in nothing more than a string of disappointing meetups with people one would have declined to call had one met them in person in the first place? But maybe that was the difference between dating and hookup culture? Perhaps dating involved that sort of introspection, a jumping-off point for candid conversations about topics deeper than your place or mine?

These were assumptions, of course. All of them. I couldn't actually bring myself to visit one of those sites. Something about them felt too organized, too predictable. It wasn't all that long ago that people met in person, I mused, during drunken encounters at bars or through mutual friends. Some archaic means of introduction, it seemed now.

When Nate and I were together, he'd throw these elaborate cocktail parties to which fifty or sixty of his closest friends—inconsequential, irrelevant acquaintances—would show up and drink vodka sodas and wear expensive sweaters and marvel at a new couch or piece of art or crystal sculpture on the credenza in the entryway of our town house. "I love this! Is this new?" they'd ask, counterfeiting excitement, masking their natural Southern accents with Ivy League enunciation.

"Yes! We picked that up at this cute little shop in Highland Ridge," Nate would drone on, trivializing the experience, the shop, the person who likely put their entire life into running it, almost following a script while ignoring the fact that he'd picked out whatever it was they were going on about on his own while I quietly placed whatever piece I'd found back on the shelf. "Oh, you know who we ran into in Highland Ridge? Craig Sexton. You guys would probably hit it off. He's here, isn't he, Brandon?" He'd then gaze around the room at no one in particular, feigning a manhunt for an invited someone who may or may not have been there. Perhaps someone more important had thrown a party that night, someone more beneficial to Craig Sexton's social endeavors than a lawyer on the partner track.

Those cocktail parties were insufferable with the fake enthusiasm and boastful pomp and all. People only came for free booze, ladder climbing, and the pipe dream of meeting someone even richer and more plastic than they were. The only thing that got me through them was Calvin showing up with a joint, tapping at his front pocket to let me know he was stealing me away to get high and talk shit about Nate's friends. Alex and Patrick were better at censoring themselves, making small talk about their careers, high-end décor, and which Midtown power couple had just broken up.

One had to have friends though—mutual or not—in order to be introduced to someone, I imagined. Alex and Calvin had tried, but even if I'd been open to it, they'd long ago exhausted their pool of available contacts. So, I discreetly scrolled through the airbrushed faces and headless torsos on the app, searching for anyone who might be there for a chat, for anything other than a faceless, nameless release.

"Please have a face," read the headline of a twenty-two-year-old abdomen. He must have been decapitated.

"Use my gaping hole," read another sketchy tagline from someone appropriately named RawBttm.

"Masc only!" The hypocrisy was rich coming from someone who probably liked to be fucked while wearing stockings and heels. Maybe I fit the bill for those guys who liked to announce they "aren't into femmes," but the dismissive attitude was noxious. Years of my childhood were successfully spent ridding myself of the softer, feminine-identified impulses I had so I wouldn't accidentally out myself. Perhaps the person I'd become would be more well-rounded, better adjusted, had I not devoted so much time to hiding. This subdued version of bullying, of exclusion, that had a habit of running rampant behind secret doors of the internet plucked a sour chord within me.

But I ventured on, scrolled through profile after profile of filtered duck faces and grainy torsos—some so aggressively sexual that they couldn't have been real—before stumbling upon what appeared to be a headshot of an attractive twentysomething with short, brown hair and big, round blue eyes. His screen name was Brian, simply, and his profile announced he was looking for chat, dates, or a relationship. I'd bite. He wasn't online, so I sent him a message in hopes he'd see it later.

The remainder of the afternoon passed by blandly, boringly. I busied myself by tidying up the shop, taking a quick inventory of product we had in the stockroom, and ensuring the payroll paperwork for the previous week was completed. Once the clock hit five thirty and work let out, a rush of customers popping in to pick up their pets kept me occupied, and the rest of the day flew by without incident.

Maestro and I took the long way home, trailing a path like a figure eight around the tree-canopied neighborhood. He sniffed, and I gazed as we rambled, the Garden District a riddle to the senses, a dichotomy in and of itself. A mix of old and new. Architectural touches of Craftsman, Victorian, and Georgian styles dotted every corner and butted up against modern, boxy-shaped behemoths covered in glass from top to bottom. Minimalism played nicely with artisanal clutter, character lovingly found in dilapidation just as it was in cosmetic overhaul. The diversity of homes and apartment buildings reflected the diversity of the humans that occupied the neighborhood. Slopes and ridges not necessarily visible to the naked eye were felt deeply in calves and glutes after a decent trek. Vibrant flower gardens, lush, overgrown greenery, and deep-hued ivies that willfully climbed brick fa?ades or the trunks of old oak trees could be spotted on every block. Collections of trees, the genealogies too plentiful to name, lined the quiet streets and towered above the storied structures.

There was a magic to the Garden District that wasn't as easily found in other neighborhoods. It was my slice of Midtown at one point, the place I called home for ten years, for better or worse. Grove Avenue, where my shop was situated, served as the dividing line between the serenity and the chaos, slow and easy to the east, implacable progress to the west.

As we turned to head home, I glanced over the roof of a hundred-year-old house, through the needles of a towering old pine tree in the backyard, and directly into the glowing orange pinnacle of a skyscraper that made up part of the city's modern skyline. No less than ten looming cranes rocketed out of haphazardly fenced-in, graveled construction sites around Spruce Street at any given time. It was convenient to everything, Spruce Street. But something about those houses in the Garden District with their massive raised front porches with swings and ceiling fans conjured something in me. Nostalgia for something I never knew.

The TV landed on whichever channel it landed on as I plunked myself onto the couch after feeding Maestro and dropped the remote control onto the cushion next to me. A faint buzz vibrated my phone, catching my attention—a notification from the Chatter guy I messaged earlier. I grabbed my device and swiped at the screen, opening the message to find out what he had to say. As I read his reply, the GPS informed me that he was only a half mile away. Before I was able to finish reading, another message appeared on the screen.

"Hey! I saw you were online, so I just wanted to say hello."

It was a complete sentence. A nice change of pace from the mindless introductory messages I was used to: "hi," "sup," and as if the profile photo of my face didn't exist, "pics?" I couldn't stomach typing responses to such blather anymore. One-word messages were left unread, banished to the waste bin of directionless drivel. One had to have standards, even for tricks. But this? Sure. It was simple and sweet, with implications of a profound interest in the person behind the picture.

"Hey. Hello to you too. How was your day?" I didn't know him, but if I was going to require substance from others, I suppose I had to supply it myself.

"It was nice. What are you up to?" he asked, a basic but reasonable inquiry for such an exchange.

"I just got off work and had some dinner. Now I'm relaxing for the night."

"Sounds nice. What do you do for work?"

That was a tough question for me to answer in such a situation. Underselling what I did wasn't fair. I liked it. But even modestly relaying to a stranger that one owns their own business can come off as pretentious.

"I run a shop in Midtown that sells pet products," my fingers casually typed, hoping to sound nonchalant, elusive. "You?"

"That's cool. I'm a high school teacher. Have been for three years."

His tenure in education implied that he was as young as he looked in his profile picture. Could I connect with someone so tender, so raw? I was used to hooking up with younger guys, but that required minimal conversation, a paucity of thought. Really meeting someone that much my junior on their level? That could be tricky. On the other hand, most guys my age were either in relationships or not at all looking for one.

"Inciting the minds of our fair youth to think critically, I hope?"

A laughing face emoji illuminated the screen. "Hardly. But I try to expand the confines of their curiosities when I can."

This one was smart, a rarity among the puerile gay men I usually encountered when using the app.

"Every little bit helps to keep them interested," I typed. "School wasn't one of my priorities at that age."

"Seems like you're the motivated type now, though."

An obnoxiously loud commercial for a fast-food restaurant chain blared through the speakers of my television. That same commercial had aired three times since I sat down. I grabbed the remote and pressed the Mute button without diverting my focus from the exchange on my phone. "Motivation was never the problem. Discipline was my downfall."

Cheesy insinuations from boys with vacuous minds were frustrating but par for the course on such a platform. The bigger problem was the clobbering barrage of dishonesty from the lion's share of people one chatted up, misleading claims spewed incessantly by people who could no longer tell a truth from a lie, even when it spilled from their own lips. There was a time and place for false braggadocio. An initial conversation with a romantic prospect didn't seem like that time or place. In that spirit, I tried not to hoodwink. This Brian character seemed to share my approach.

Those slippery, dancing gray dots flashed on the screen, then disappeared, then reappeared, then disappeared. A few seconds later, a response was delivered. "You used the word discipline on a hookup app without any accompanying innuendo."

I sent a laughing face emoji back before typing, something I never thought I'd do at this age, at any age. "I suppose I did."

"And I see from your profile that you like obscure music, dancing, and craft beer. A little vague, but those sound like things an actual human being likes," he responded. "And you're cute."

A half-smile broke free from the fortress of my lips as I processed the compliment. "Thanks. Since I messaged you earlier, it's safe to assume I think you're cute too. And do you like music, dancing, or beer?"

"Oddly enough, I do," he teased.

The back-and-forth of the typed word between us felt effortless, uncomplicated. Sadly, that wasn't always the case when chatting. Usually, I had to pull teeth to get a response to a meaningful question. Most guys didn't seem to understand that one-word answers provided no insight, gave no clues as to who a person might be, what they might enjoy, what might inspire them. A simple, inconsequential, yet detailed response could sometimes move mountains.

"Would you maybe like to meet for a beer this week?" I asked, half expecting him to ghost me, fearful of an actual in-person interaction, no screen to hide behind, no control of the situation.

"How about coffee?" he countered. "Less investment in case things go south."

He made a valid point. Coffee could be quick. One could throw an espresso shot back just as easily as they could linger over a cup of joe. Drinks inevitably led to more drinks, dinner, and ill-advised intercourse as drunken decisions were hastily manufactured.

"Deal."

Before signing off, phone numbers were exchanged, and a date was set: Thursday, six o'clock at the Grindhouse, the coffee shop down the block from City Paws. I had my doubts that Brian was his real name. He didn't look like a Brian. My profile name was Damon. Avoiding someone with whom the interest was unrequited was easier if real names were obscured from the get-go. The real lives of Brian and Damon could be figured out over coffee.

Thursday arrived quickly, the first half of the workweek keeping me otherwise occupied, receiving merchandise and restocking shelves and the usual goings-on. Vonnie agreed to close for me so I could sneak out early and meet "Brian" for coffee. It wasn't her first time. She knew what she was doing. But I wouldn't hesitate to use her as an excuse if "Brian" was short for "Histrionic Twink with a Daddy Complex" and I needed to remove myself from the situation quickly.

I sort of run-walked down the three brick steps that led to a short walkway and out to the sidewalk, an almost jovial lumber to my step as I popped a stick of chewing gum into my mouth. It was three minutes until six, three minutes until I was supposed to meet my date, and only a sixty-second walk to the Grindhouse. Maestro was at home, probably passed out on the couch after having been on a long walk that afternoon, so I was confident I could linger for a while if things went well. My nerves were fine. I felt assured.

My gum had somehow lost its flavor by the time I arrived at the front door. The garbage can just outside proved useful as I entered, pausing to take a quick survey of the crunchy-themed, cedar-planked dining room, unable to find anyone resembling Brian's profile picture. Eight small tables were scattered about the cozy space, maybe half of them occupied, leaving enough room for a small queue of customers to snake its way from the cash register to the front door. Fortunately, there was no line.

The afternoon air had cooled to a tolerable temperature, so I grabbed a cup of coffee and selected a table underneath the leaves of a tree that grew near the deck outside, shade finding more of my face than the sun. Another five tables were arranged comfortably on the deck, enough space between them to allow for a semi-private conversation with a companion. I placed my coffee on the grated metal tabletop and started to sit, the legs of the table as shifty and uneven as the legs of every table on every restaurant patio in Midtown, when a voice announced itself from behind. "Damon?"

It had a tenor ring to it, even and forceful but nonthreatening. I turned myself toward the voice. The figure to which it belonged was adorable—lean and baby-faced—just like the profile picture on the app. His full head of deliberately tousled hair appeared a shade darker in person, maybe due to the product he used. This Brian was a snappy dresser: black button-down shirt, casually unfastened at the neckline to show off a smooth chest, tucked into fitted gray slacks. I suddenly felt underdressed in my blue jeans and polo, untucked and slightly wrinkled. A humbling, thankful moment quickly washed over me as I pondered my usual work attire: a ratty T-shirt and threadbare hoodie stained with dog saliva. At least I'd had the foresight to put on a clean shirt. Even though he was thin, his compact frame lent him an athletic look. The pout of his lips resembled heaven as they curled into an easy grin when I stood to greet him.

"Uh, yeah," I stuttered. "It's Brandon, actually. You must be Brian."

His smile remained friendly as he offered me his hand. "Ritz," he chuckled, our shared strategy for avoidance melting with the afternoon heat.

I laughed too, but more from hearing his name than our mutual approach to meeting a date.

"Your name is Ritz? Like the cracker?" I asked—or teased, I guess—disbelief scribbled on my face. I immediately hated myself for saying it. It was a cheap shot about something that made no difference. I wasn't even sure what I meant by it. The wise-guy attitude that percolated deep inside my psyche, combined with a natural pessimism and resistance to anything that felt new, burned me often, including now, as his friendly smile shriveled into a tight-lipped grin, guarded and uneasy.

"That's the first time I've heard that," he shot back, obviously annoyed by my stupid remark that not only questioned his validity but his character.

"I'm sorry." I quickly tried to rebound from my stupid mistake. "I'm a little nervous. It sometimes turns me into a smartass. Apparently, not even a clever one."

I lied about my nerves, and his features relaxed. "Don't worry about it. Listen, I'm gonna grab something to drink. I'll be right back."

"Sure."

Ritz removed the black leather messenger bag from his shoulder and placed it on the chair across the table from where I stood. As he disappeared into the coffee shop, I took my seat and breathed out a heavy sigh, silently self-reprimanding for not being able to control my reactions, my words. Why did I care about his name? Names possess no definition, no insight.

Nate had this annoyingly effective way of shutting me up when I made smart comments or doled out backhanded compliments during friendly introductions, an instinctive look of death that penetrated flesh and bone, even my soul. Even Alex had to grab my shoulder from time to time, warning me to shut up before I ever opened my mouth. I was better at subtly cutting someone down than simply making fun of their name. That exchange with Ritz wasn't a high point for me. Maybe my nerves were worse than I realized. A few moments later, he reappeared, coffee cup in hand.

"What'd you get?" I asked with aplomb, an attempt at more basic and cordial conversation, a bid to wipe my opening remarks from the minutes.

"Nonfat vanilla latte. You?"

"Drip coffee. Black. It's boring, but I guess suits me." I laughed, rambling awkwardly. "Easy to sip, y'know? Makes it easy to enjoy over breakfast or during work."

Ritz chuckled. "I could see that."

"So," I started, curious as to why he was dressed up and toting a bag. "Did you come from work?"

"Sort of. My workday ended at three, but I lead a theater program at the school over the summer. I had some planning to do for the show we're putting on at the end of the session."

"So, you're a theater teacher? That's cool."

"Yeah. And ninth-grade English. And I'm part of a theater company that puts on productions in the area a couple of times a year."

"I imagine that keeps you busy."

"It does, but I enjoy it." He fidgeted with the lid of his latte before taking a sip. "And what about you? You said you manage a pet shop?"

"Yeah. Well, pet supply store," I politely corrected. "We sell food and toys and treats. We do grooming and dog walking too."

"And it's in the neighborhood?"

"Yeah." I motioned down the street. "Just a half block down Grove."

"Oh, City Paws?" he asked, a curious jump to his tone.

"Yeah, that's it. Have you been?"

"No. I mean, I don't have any pets. But I've walked by it a hundred times. How long have you worked there?"

"I opened it five years ago."

"That's interesting. I didn't realize you owned it."

"Yeah. I guess it's my baby."

"Do you have pets of your own?" he asked, seeming far more interested in our conversation than he had been moments before.

"I have a border collie: Maestro. He's nine. Back at my condo, probably sleeping."

Conversation flowed easier as time passed, assisted by the consumption of caffeinated beverages. Ritz and I shared some common interests and were similarly different enough to entertain questions and weigh ideologies. Careers and hobbies and favorite dining spots were touched on; he was a foodie, maintaining a list of restaurants in the city he still wanted to try. He was interested to learn that I rarely left the neighborhood, settling for the same five or six establishments whenever I dined out.

It was going well. Maybe an hour had passed as I rolled my empty coffee cup around on the tabletop, balanced under my finger. Ritz similarly traced his index finger around the rim of his own cup as the patio filled up around us, the people of Midtown fresh off work, heading out for dinner or drinks. Laughter between us was more common than it wasn't, a reaction I wasn't accustomed to but willingly accepted. It was refreshing, until he asked me where I was from, and we hit a bit of a snag, a rift of my own making.

"Maybe it's just the actor in me trying to break down your character," he started, "but I can't imagine you grew up around here with that accent."

Ritz's inflection was even-keeled, nondescript. From the tales he told, I'd been able to ascertain that he grew up in the Atlanta suburbs. He must have worked hard on his articulation, perhaps for the purpose of acting gigs, ridding himself of the natural drawl he'd probably once possessed.

"Nah. I've been here almost fifteen years, but I grew up on the East Coast… Long Island. Babylon, to be exact. Lived in New York City for seven years though."

"That makes more sense. What brought you to Atlanta?"

Where to begin? On the surface, it seemed like a harmless inquiry, a simple question that should produce a simple answer. An easy way to employ the truth as a response to his query didn't exist though. Not for me. The still-incomprehensible attack on the World Trade Center? Sadness permeating every nook of the city? Too much reckless partying? Depression? A possible drug overdose? It was a lot to unpack on a first date, so I gave him a brief overview instead, glossing over the grittier details. "I was managing a Banana in New York. After the towers fell, I was having a hard time in the city. A lot of people were. I started interviewing for jobs in other places. Got hired at a store in Grove Center Mall, so I made the move."

"Wow. I hardly even remember 9/11," he recalled, immediately leaving a sour taste in my mouth. How could one forget? The impact was immediate and dramatic, the legacy enduring. But I'd been so close to it. At an age that could fathom a milestone. Ritz was young, green in the experience of emotion, of connection to the past. He spoke of the event with distance. Maybe something else would happen in his lifetime, a different sort of tragedy that would affect him similarly. I hoped not. "I was only ten years old when that happened. I guess I didn't realize you were that much older than me."

"Is it a problem?" I asked nervously, a guarded smile stippling my face.

"No. Not at all. You just don't look your age."

"Should I take that as a compliment?"

"You should. Did you have a hard time adjusting when you moved? I've always thought about moving somewhere else, but I chicken out when it gets too real."

His candor was refreshing.

"A little. Everything moved slower here, but I didn't really mind that. There was a time I missed how direct New Yorkers could be"—I laughed—"but I got over that too. My best friend, Alex, moved down six months after I did, so we figured it out together. It wasn't that different. Like, we used to go out to the clubs a lot in New York, and there were some good clubs here at that time, so I didn't feel too far from home."

"Do you still go out?"

"Nah. I mean, me and my friends still go to the bars sometimes, but not a lot. I miss the club scene, the good music," I relayed, nostalgia enveloping my words, recollecting endless nights of chemically fueled dancing with like-minded people in dark, sweaty, cavernous spaces. Illegal raves, the soundtracks to my adolescence, had vanished, leaving nothing more than cherished memories in their wake. And the clubs, those booming establishments that cradled thousands of permeable bodies each night, desperate for aural pleasure, begging for guidance, they'd all but disappeared, surrendered to online hookup culture and trendy lounges. My childhood felt like it had been swept away without me.

"I know what you mean," Ritz added. "The scene's changed a lot in the last few years. Going out was much more fun when I was twenty-one. People danced more back then than they do now."

Danced? What was he talking about? Of course people danced. As long as there were amphetamines to abuse, people would dance. Just because people still danced didn't mean the music was any good. It didn't mean the scene was palatable. I tried to take another sip of coffee as he spoke, forgetting that my cup was empty. It was clear Ritz didn't understand the vast differences between going out twenty years ago and going out now, the outrageousness of it, the lawlessness. The nights were as feral as today's are tame, uninspiring, lifeless. But how could he have known? He was a baby. I attempted to quell my desire to speak, to cut him off with a subjective explanation.

Ritz continued. "The music is still pretty good though, I guess. We still have Gaga and Bey and Ri?—"

"Nah. You don't understand," I aggressively interrupted, suddenly unable to hold back, to hold my tongue, dancing on the precipice of severe regret for what I was inevitably about to say. "What are you, twenty-five?"

"I'm sorry?" Ritz asked defensively.

"You don't—" I paused, fumbling for the right words as I sucked my teeth, as if there were any words that could be right in that moment. "You can't know what I mean."

He seemed surprised by the uninvited interruption but did his best to politely engage. "Were clubs in New York really that much different than they are here?"

"Nah. See, it wasn't the clubs. It was the time. It was the atmosphere. It was the parties and the music and the whole underground vibe that was being cultivated. Everything felt new, felt… alive." I was off and running, tumbling headfirst into a black hole of rosy memories I couldn't seem to let go of. "We were tired of the same old shit… the politics, right? Tired of Reagan and AIDS and the war on drugs, the war on us. Reality was bleak, so we partied. We rebelled. We made our own fun. And the music… it reflected that."

Ritz responded to the outburst of a perfect stranger in the only way he could. "I'm sorry. I didn't realize."

But I just kept going. "New York City was overflowing with characters back then, populated by all these people that had lived too hard and seen too much. These people that had grown up on the wrong side of the tracks, the wrong side of the country, and escaped, somehow living to tell the tales. Going out back then was like being thrown into the rings of a different circus every night. Drag queens and club kids all made up would dance next to ravers and rappers in hoodies and Timberlands. For a few years, all of these people from different worlds just collided in these warehouses and became this frantic ball of bliss… of ecstasy. That was the city at that time. It could be shit when the sun was out, but once it went down, the city woke up. It came alive. You never knew what you were gonna see or hear or be swept into when you walked out your front door after midnight. And there were a hundred different circuses to choose from. It was like this sensory overload of colors and lights and music."

I had gotten myself too worked up. A couple at the table next to us had taken notice of my elevating volume as they tried to enjoy their coffees or teas or whatever they were drinking. The expression on Ritz's face had transfigured from one of genuine curiosity to one of annoyed perplexity.

I attempted to tone it down as I continued, "Look, I hate to say it, but you'll probably never get to experience anything like the feeling of going out back then. You'll never understand what it was like to be handed a flyer for some party the next weekend by some random stranger, a flyer that only had the names of some DJs and a phone number that led to a message on an answering machine in some basement in Staten Island that gave you the address to a party that was probably illegal but everybody wanted to go to anyway. You can't understand what it was like to have been a part of that group of a thousand people that found that party, waited on line outside in the freezing cold to get in, then danced their faces off to some of the most intense, futuristic, heart-pounding music they'd ever heard until the sun came up. And sometimes even after the sun came up! There was, like, a magic to it. And it just doesn't exist anymore.

"And that music! It didn't bother anyone that they'd never heard those songs on the radio before. That only made it better, more underground, more interesting. We craved the obscurity. We spent hours in record stores all over the city looking for shit we didn't even know the name of. You didn't hear pop stars singing cheesy-ass songs like you do now. And you didn't get dressed up for those parties. You dressed down so you could move all night long, sweating half to death to the synths and the drums and these acid-electro sounds that you couldn't even fucking describe. People used to dance so hard they sweat through their clothes, and nobody cared. It was tribal.

"And then there were the clubs! These massive spaces for all these lost children to push the limits of whatever was holding them down at home or at school or at work. People would wait on line for hours to get into some of these places to dance the night away. The décor, the cocktails, it was all secondary to the music, the sound systems, the dance floors. These places were respites for weary dreamers trying to escape the banal reality of their jobs and the rigid conformity of their childhoods."

Ritz stared at me blankly. I had suddenly become a poet, a sad, idealistic novelist lamenting the death of the written word. I was on a roll though, spewing reckless trains of thought in romantic vocabulary I'd never before used, had never even thought about using. I couldn't tell if he'd tuned me out or if he was simply thinking through his exit strategy. I didn't care. All the feelings I'd pent up over the years came spilling out, blanketing the patio with a palpable blend of rosy nostalgia and jaded disdain. My brain had more to say though.

"Atlanta was different, but not that different back then. And unfortunately, you never got the chance to experience Avenue back in the day. Or Legends, or Orbit, or the Union. Those dark, cavernous beacons of musical sanity after midnight. Some were gay, and some were straight, but once the bass started rattling your bones on Friday or Saturday or even on a fucking Wednesday, it didn't matter. Everyone was welcome. There was only the beat, the infectious rhythms of disco or house or techno or even hip-hop, uniting people in an oasis of ecstasy."

And to me, that was part of the problem. There wasn't Ecstasy anymore. Ecstasy had become Molly, some unrecognizable combination of chemicals that I'd never tried but somehow knew wasn't the same as what everyone was doing back in the nineties. How could it be? No one was loved up anymore. They were tweaking and unstable and violent.

Ritz had become visibly agitated, glancing around at others who uncomfortably eyeballed us from a distance. The other customers on the patio had taken notice of my passion, my intensity as I relayed my experience with nightlife when people were still able to disconnect. I hardly blamed them. My emotional state had crested while discussing the subject, and I was admittedly talking more to myself than to the adorable, fresh-faced youth across the table from me. I was working out some buried trauma with myself in front of Ritz and everybody, uncovering a long-blocked yearning for something I knew I'd never again experience. I missed those long nights out. I missed the music. I missed my youth. And I was apparently going to make everyone else miss it too.

"This was all before the invention of smartphones, of course. When people left home back then, their options for connecting with someone that wasn't standing right next to them were limited. This culture of constantly being online and if it wasn't photographed and shared and liked a million times, it didn't happen is what has killed nightlife. And I know you think we still have bars and people still go out. And yeah, that's true, but we used to have something better than an understaffed bar with shitty, auto-tuned top-forty music being dumped from someone's smartphone and a bunch of apathetic guys standing around with their noses pushed against screens, not even conversing with the very friends they went out with. No one dances, not like they used to. And did you know that most clubs didn't have a hundred TV screens hanging on every wall? The DJ wasn't even visible sometimes. Now they're on a stage like a fucking pop star, a thousand cell phones held to the sky taking video. Why do people even bother going out, huh? What's the point when you can hear the same shitty songs twelve times a day on any given radio station?"

The questions were rhetorical. I heard myself yelling, felt my face turning red as I continued my barrage of blame and dissatisfaction on this innocent bystander, a mere victim of the times. Who was I to judge anyway? Maybe Ritz was having as much fun now as I did back then? Maybe these would turn out to be the golden years of something for him, and I was shitting all over it. But I wasn't quite done. I had yet to twist the knife.

"I mean, honestly. What's the point?" I demanded to know, the back of my palm excitedly knocking my empty coffee cup onto its side as I threw my hands up. I grabbed the cup to set it upright on the table while my blood pressure stabilized and my actions came into focus, defeated, deflated. I'd gone somewhere else for a moment, like a diabetic having a hypoglycemic episode, snapping back from a dark recess of my mind that contained happy thoughts but only bitter avenues for delivery.

Ritz looked me dead in the eye, his expression glossed over. He was waiting for me to start in again, berating him for simply existing, but I was silent as I met his stare, purged of all the hatred and rage I usually kept buried deep down inside. I had nothing left. I'd finally run out of gas.

"Are you done?" he eventually asked, his tone pronounced, perturbed by my random flight from the handle.

I breathed heavily as I regained my composure, my expression surely reflecting a sad, baffled look of subjugation. "Yeah."

"Good," Ritz announced. "Because I am too."

He swiftly stood and grabbed his bag from the back of the chair, lifting it over his head to rest the strap on his shoulder before turning to walk away, to end the date the way I somehow knew it would end before it started. Maybe that's why I wasn't nervous about meeting him in the first place. Perhaps I knew our date would end badly, a prophecy fulfilled by years of resentment.

"Wait, Ritz…" I begged in vain, fully aware that he wouldn't be returning to the table. My forehead fell to my palm, elbow uncomfortably digging into the arm of the chair on which I perched. A snicker from one of the guys at the table next to me drifted through the thick air. I looked in his direction, noticed he was in his late forties, maybe early fifties. He'd heard my rant in full and understood exactly what I was talking about. He and his companion looked at me with knowing grins, then pity, before returning to their own conversation.

Hanging my head, I forcefully swatted my empty coffee cup with the back of my hand, purposefully this time, sending it sailing off the side of the table. What a fool I was. How difficult was it to keep my mouth shut? To just let things go?

This unscalable wall sat squarely between people who'd grown up with smartphones and those who'd grown up before them, those who'd been reared with the internet's guidance, and those who'd experienced the intense fury born from returning home after the streetlights came on. These people of a certain age could communicate with those on the other side but never completely understand them, and vice versa. Every day, it seemed, that truth was presented to me in some fashion. Proven again time after time.

The guys I usually dated—hooked up with—tended to be younger. Much younger. And I was starting to see the problem with that. Maybe I needed to start searching out guys who knew what it was like to use a pay phone or write a letter or find a fucking bathroom without using GPS. I shuddered at the thought of having to sign up for a dating site.

After stopping into XO for a quick drink (an immediate alcoholic beverage seemed necessary after that disastrous attempt to emerge from my social cocoon), I returned home and took Maestro for a long walk. It cleared my head, allowed me to think about my behavior, my nagging need to prove unnecessary points. When we got back, I clicked the Chatter icon on my phone and opened the conversation Ritz and I started a few days earlier. It took me nearly fifteen minutes to figure out what I wanted to say and more than a few iterations of sentence structure, but I finally typed an apology.

"I'm sorry for the way I reacted tonight. I don't really have an excuse other than pent-up anger over something too deep to get into. I understand that you probably won't want to see me again, and I don't blame you. But please know that my outburst wasn't personal, and I apologize."

Ritz's response arrived a few days later, and honestly, I was surprised to receive a response at all. His words were curt and to the point. "I accept the apology, but I don't think you're the person I'm looking to get to know at this point in my life. I hope you find what you're looking for, Brandon."

Ouch.