Caw. Caw.

Kind of a local celebrity, down at the pharmacy. A jolly figure in Converse and ripped-knee jeans.

He puttered around the aisles with a plastic basket hanging off his elbow. Box of plasters, box of nasal strips. Iodized table salt. Condoms. Not that he had anyone to use them on, per se. Any plans, per se.

His flat was too full of garbage to have anyone over and Matt rattled too much when he moved, with his bottles and blisters of pills, to be inconspicuous anymore among the skinny Hulme Park bushes.

Two years ago Matt had walked down the middle of a street with his shirtsleeve on fire. Now, aged 24, he lived the grand life of a retiree, nodding off at 2030, over a pack of frozen chicken fingers, the heat off the TV set and some expiring fruit jam.

Out back of the computer shop where he worked, Matt smoked a cigarette and rubbed the bald spot on his arm where the burn had landed. Hair no longer grew there, but he didn’t mind it too much, he didn’t love how furry he was overall. Lot of effort to shave though—or to burn oneself all over—and so he didn’t. Work was boring and paid okay. He had a little bit of money saved now he wasn’t pouring it down the hole of drugs. He’d been having vague images of bundling himself onto a plane and flying over to where Mello was at, plowing holes through lots of fluffy clouds to show up with his strip of condoms and himself and see what Mello thought of that.

MATT: wowww work thing!!

MATT: whatt a crazy life

MATT: club bumpin

MATT: ladies xpecially bumpinnn >o>

Mello read the message, then exited the thread; he didn’t look at his phone for the next 90 hours. New York on a June evening was stuffed with shining surfaces: neon, fountain shake, pavement shimmer off dropped dress sequins. Life moved here, not like back in grey Winchester. Everywhere, deals being made, everyone walking with purpose, the backs of their shoes stepped on with their haste to get on with it. Crypto swam through the air like the odor off a kebab cart. And Mello was hungry. He wanted to eat songbirds and the comfort off the indolent rich.

Making money felt good; last week he’d gotten high and sat in his bathtub with a couple of bands, rubbing the bills up and down his arms.

So he was dating a woman; well, what complaints did Matt have? Her arse was even skinner than Matt’s; she was like a little dickless boy; she was an Equinox junkie, sometimes she did 4 classes a day and then Barre for cooldown. She had breasts but Mello didn’t have to look at them if he turned her over. She liked being turned over. She was a half-Brazilian half-Norwegian model who thought it was sexy when Mello spoke Russian, even though half the time Mello’s Russian was Ukrainian. She couldn’t tell the difference, which was ideal. Matt was a freak for languages. He spoke Cobol and a surprisingly passable Surzhyk.

[MELLO is offline.]

The problem with Matt was that you couldn’t give him anything, not a millimeter, not a breath or piece of hair. If you texted him a vile insult it still made him happy, brimful with your acknowledgement. Matt could run off air and a peanut shell, affection-wise, obsession-wise—there was no difference with him, between Mello and lines on tables, he was blissful either way, cutting and chopping and sniffing and screwing and sputtering and reaching round your hip for more.

Matt’s idea of a workout was the half-crunch to fetch his cigarette off the nightstand.

MATT: sk whenss the wefding

MATT: j can give a spech

MATT: sleech

The thing was, that Mello had to be a different type of person now. Different friends body style face stride posture place in the world. He was cultivating an American accent. He was cultivating saying he was from Russia. He was running upgraded firmware, fucking hardass shit, a sexy version, like, 21.x, while Matt was hung up on the beta release of Mello that had weak wrists and who kissed.

[MATT is offline.]

Lot of onion layers ago, the beta version.

[MELLO is online.]

[MELLO is invisible.]

“Aiming to”—because Matt still remembered well when he used to cut his hair with scissors. His black nail polish, his lipstick phase. He was a faggot in a 800-pound suit. Matt knew the core of him. He wasn’t letting go of that, not easily.

Matt lay on his back on his bed in his flat, picking memories sweatily off his damp fingertips. “Investment banking”. “I-Banking”, for those in the know. Sounded like Eye Banking. A safe full of sclera. Matt had been “eye banking” the boys down in Hulme Park in the backwash swill of 0200 Saturdays, pocketful of lorazepam to take the edge off. On about 3 to 3 and a half milligrams of lorazepam he started to really feel good about cruising, he’d catch a rhythm and a glide, prowling the bushes and benches like a sickass panther, a sickass shark, deep sailing over the continental rift.

Mello had an advanced degree; Matt had an appointment at the free clinic on Nell Lane. Mello got a promotion and Matt got chlamydia. Matt got a prescription. Matt got antibiotics for his burning stream.