Philadelphia

If eating vegan marshmallows after breakfast is wrong then I don't want to be right.


There are three drops of my blood on a bar's pool table somewhere in Philadelphia. They are close to the pocket on the bottom right side.

The difference between a small, grungy dive bar with a jukebox and neon green lights inside and a boutique beer list with wrought-iron sidewalk tables is exactly one block (and several jello shots).

The inside of a Rite Aid at 1:00 am on a Saturday morning is the great equalizer. A room full of people cheering for the man who found his Cheetos.

My kingdom for a king-size bed.

Creaky stairwells and loose banisters and waking up in the middle of the night needing urgently to pee.



The next morning I bite into bacon, lean back eyes closed and chewing, when I open them again I say to the waitress you have given me a new lease on life. She laughs and I tip well.

We walk all over the city and then run for the train, 35 minutes along the waterside trail underneath the art museum.

I shit you not: There is a line of people each waiting to take the exact same photo of themselves in front of a statue of Rocky. One by one they raise their fists over their heads.

The train ride is sleepy and uneventful. After setting down my backpack in the kitchen and kissing Wilson on the top of his head I walk to the park, lay down a blanket in the grass, look up at the tree branches above me blinking.

Back home in bed I sleep well, dream I'm an FBI agent in the middle of a life-or-death investigation. I slither beneath stone walls and test a blind man's veracity, confident, I will not let that woman get hurt.