Randall Mann

There was a time we had functional alignment. I was your individual contributor, you my associate director. On Monday I said Happy Monday, rolling my rimshot grin. Ring-fenced by cool molecules, like cattle, I battled biosimilars, sipped local gin; I tried my luck at affairs and trade fairs, optimistic as a fantasy suite. I inked the deal, the ink slick and permanent, like President Reagan. I didn’t sleep unless I felt sick. Something was always gated on a fragile something. Everything on the critical path. The whiteboard, cruel as conceptual math, scope creep like a disease. Some of those days, our parent showed up, bespoke shoes bearing Leckerli. I felt like a starlet on a cruisy backlot, an outpost of opportunity. I took on a new role, went through the motions and the typing pool. But the bonus was no bonus, any more than the bay. Like tender, it started to fray. My admin booked a good weekend of atrocity. I winced. I slid the To-Hurt folder below a molecule’s Package Insert. Then came the Efficiency Report, my resignation. I packed up the brood for Orlando, a last resort. I cut off my khaki pants at the knee, traded in the wife — this is the Epcot Center of my life! I want to thank you in advance. I’d fallen out of favor, like a nation.

He slid the stiff blade up to my ear: Oh, fear, this should have been thirst, a cheapening act. But I lacked, as usual, the crucial disbelief. Sticky, cold, a billfold wet in my mouth, wrists bound by his belt, I felt like the boy in a briny night pool, he who found the drowned body, yet still somehow swam with an unknown joy. That boy.

I found my muster station, sir. My skin is patent leather. The tourists are recidivists. This calm is earthquake weather. I’ve used up all the mulligans. I’d kill to share a vice. The youngster reads a yellowed Oui. The socialite has lice. The Europe trip I finally took was rash and Polaroid, was gilt, confit, and bathhouse foam. And I cannot avoid the end: I will not die in Paris, won’t rest for good behind a painted mausoleum door. The purser will not find me mummified beneath your tulle, and Paris will not burn. Today is Thursday, so I’ll die. Come help me pick my urn.

To celebrate his final Pride, in June, my friend, lymphatic, thin, and in distress, managed to dress in drag. He shot the moon: outstretched, he’d used his dying to think—obsess— about the Prada pumps, their skin a snake; the heavy pantyhose, two pair; the moot but lacy underthings; the makeup, cake, to overlay his pain. I called him beaut- i-ful; he said he felt like Greta Garbo in Queen Christina(our campy interplay); I countered that he looked more like a hobo- sexual in heels. We howled. That day, we never left his Castro flat. His rhinestone glittered, and everywhere, the smell of cologne.

In a precisely lighted room, the CFO speaks of  start-to-start dependencies. Says let me loop back with you. Says please cascade as appropriate. It’s that time of morning, so we all can smell the doughnut factory. If scent were white noise, doughnuts would be that scent. The factory won’t sell at any price. The building next to it burns the animals we experiment on. I have worked on a few preclinical reports in my time. The rhesus monkeys become so desperate that they attempt suicide, over and over again. I am legally obligated to spare you the particulars. How could things be any different? Here many choice molecules have been born. Here. This pill will dissolve like sugar. Your last five months will be good ones.

This is what he dreams of: a map of burned land, a mound of dirt in the early century’s winter. A map of burned land? A country is razed in the early century’s winter. And God descends. A country is raised because of industry. And God descends, messengers rush inside because of industry, in spite of diplomats. Messengers rush inside to haunt the darkened aisles. In spite of diplomats, the witnesses know well to haunt the darkened aisles, experimentally— the witnesses know well that ushers dressed in black experimentally lurk by the cushioned seats. That ushers dress in black should tell you something: lurking by the cushioned seats, the saved and the terrible. I should tell you something: this is what he dreams of, the saved and the terrible— a mound of dirt.

If there is a word in the lexicon of love, it will not declare itself. The nature of words is to fail men who fall in love with men. It will not declare itself, the perfect word.Boyfriend seems ridiculous: men who fall in love with men deserve something a bit more formal. The perfect word? Boyfriend? Ridiculous. But partner is . . . businesslike— we deserve something a bit less formal, much more in love with love. But if partner is businesslike, then lover suggests only sex, is too much in love with love. There is life outside of the bedroom, and lover suggests only sex. We are left with roommate, or friend. There is life, but outside of the bedroom. My friend and I rarely speak of one another. To my left is my roommate, my friend. If there is a word in the lexicon of love, my friend and I rarely speak it of one another. The nature of words is to fail.

For once, he was just my father. We drove to the Computing Center in a Monte Carlo Landau not technically ours. Lexington, 1977. That fall. The color had settled, too, undone orange-brown and dull yellow, crimson. And it was something, yet not, the pile of  leaves just a pile of  leaves. Sorry to think what thinking has done to landscape: He loved punched cards, program decks and subroutines, assembly languages and keypunch machines. Even my father looked small next to a mainframe. The sound of order; the space between us. We almost laughed, but not for years — we almost laughed. But not. For years, the space between us, the sound of order next to a mainframe. Even my father looked small. And keypunch machines, assembly languages, program decks and subroutines. He loved punched cards, what thinking has done to landscape — just a pile of leaves. Sorry to think, yet not, the pile of leaves crimson. And it was. Something orange-brown and dull yellow had settled, too, undone 1977, that fall, the color not technically ours, Lexington in a Monte Carlo Landau. We drove to the Computing Center. For once he was just, my father.

My mother is scared of the world. She left my father after forty years. She was like, Happy anniversary, goodbye; I respect that. The moon tonight is dazzling, is full of   itself  but not quite full. A man should not love the moon, said Milosz. Not exactly. He translated himself into saying it. A man should not love translation; there’s so much I can’t know. An hour ago, marking time with someone I would like to like, we passed some trees and there were crickets (crickets!) chirping right off  Divisadero. I touched his hand, and for a cold moment I was like a child again, nothing more, nothing less.

has crawled out of the ocean to carry us from sleep, like sleep, the gray of outer Sunset portending the gray of inner Sunset. And so on. On the N, one should invent intricate fictions for the lives of the passengers: time is a game. Soon we will be underground. But first, the long lush green of Duboce Park, the happiness of dogs! Good-bye now to their owners eyeing one another. Good-bye to the park's locked men's room, where once a man was found dead, his penis shoved into his own mouth. The world continues, the engine of the world the letter N.