Chapter 18
Exiting the depths of Penn Station onto the crowded sidewalk, the only thing I see is the sky above and between the buildings. It’s still bright blue, like the day has been extended for our adventure, or maybe—and this is more surprising—like New York City has never been that far away.
With a dramatic flourish, Elijah lifts his arm as though he’s presenting the world. “The place we’re going is in SoHo.”
I back away from an aggressive pigeon. “And…we can walk there from here?”
Elijah narrows his eyes. “How much time have you spent in the city?”
“I went on some school trips.”
“What have you been doing the past seventeen years?”
“This is what I ask myself.”
A seagull flies by, a reminder that even though all I can see is cement, we’re on an island.
Elijah motions for me to follow and I do.
He talks with his hands, fingers spread wide, walking quickly, telling me about when he started coming in for ballet at his studio, Steps on Broadway.
The first time, his mother took the train with him.
Since then, he’s been on his own. Coming home late on a weeknight is the best part.
His mom thinks he’s going to an extra class now, that’s why he’s able to be here.
I tell him I texted my mom I’ll be home late and she gave me three thumbs-ups, no questions asked.
He leads us into the subway and through the turnstile, tapping his phone to pay for both of us, glancing only briefly at the signs before maneuvering through crowds of people to a wide staircase.
We descend deeper to a cement platform with stained benches and bright signs advertising dating apps.
There are no trains in sight, but we’re surrounded by loud rumbling.
Beside a trash can sits a woman sewing fabric rats.
The rats are spread around her eating fabric pizza, wearing ripped socks as sweaters, and playing cardboard instruments.
It’s unclear whether she’s selling them or just living her life.
A train arrives and I line up behind Elijah.
The doors open and a wave of people push us inside.
I’m pressed against Elijah’s back. I look to see if there’s somewhere else I’m supposed to go, but the train is packed.
We stand shoulder to shoulder as the doors close.
Elijah holds my arm when the train lurches away.
He removes from his purple bag a pair of over-ear headphones. “You don’t know Sufjan Stevens, right?”
“I apparently don’t know anything.”
He places the headphones over my ears. When the song starts, all I can think is that I’ve never actually listened to music. I’ve listened to the top layer of music, but there are ten more that are only accessible when you have good headphones.
A mandolin plays while a gentle voice sings, and I am simultaneously transported elsewhere and returned to myself.
I lift one headphone off my ear. “This guy is great.”
“He’s gorgeous too.”
He shows me a photo of Sufjan, dark stubble over a light complexion, his short hair a mess. He has a gap between his front teeth.
“He is.”
He shows me photos of Sufjan wearing wings, wearing a pink-and-black striped jacket, and wearing three hats. I don’t know how to interpret any of these looks. In some pictures he’s older than my mom, in others almost as young as me.
“So many life goals,” Elijah says.
“You mean you want to be like him or be with him?”
“This is what I ask myself.”
There’s something I’m feeling that I don’t understand, that runs away when I try to look at it.
I start to take the headphones off but Elijah stops me.
“Keep them on. Listening to music while surrounded by millions of people is one of the best parts of being in the city.”
As the train speeds through tunnels of barely lit graffiti, I exist only in the song. Elijah doesn’t look at me and I take this as a kindness, a way of offering me space. After the song ends, it repeats. My heartbeat slows and my thoughts calm.
I take the headphones off as we emerge onto the cobblestone streets of SoHo. The buildings are shorter here, and everyone carries shopping bags. Elijah leads us confidently down a small street that might be an alleyway.
“The thing I find frustrating about Jay,” he says, as though we’ve been discussing this the whole time, “is that he always says he’s joking. And since he’s only joking, he doesn’t have to take responsibility for what he says. He gets to pretend he isn’t being serious.”
I jump right in. “Yes! But I feel like the effect is serious.”
He stops. “Of course it is. Because every time he jokes, the idea inside his joke becomes more normal.”
“And if you say it’s offensive, you’re accused of being too sensitive. Which for some reason means you automatically lose?”
He starts walking again. “Because sensitivity is weakness. Caring is weakness.”
“Which doesn’t make any sense at all. We’re supposed to go our entire lives never feeling, never caring? How is that in any way admirable or desirable?”
He lets out a dramatic sigh. “That’s the sacrifice a man must make.”
The alleyway ends at a street of old warehouses with expensive-looking shops. We walk quickly past them.
“I joked about something similar onstage the other night,” I say, and now I’m also talking with my hands. “How if men have an emotion other than anger, then they’re only allowed to express it through humor.”
“You joked about it.”
I stop. “This is what I should tell a story about in class tomorrow.”
“This is what you should do in class tomorrow.”
I squint. “Okay, but what do you mean?”
“Don’t make us laugh. Make us feel.”
I look away. “I hear that, but I also want to beat Jay. And in class the currency is laughter.”
His face contorts. “Says who? Not Mazzei. And not me, if that’s worth anything.”
The feeling I don’t understand flares up again.
Soon Elijah stops in front of a set of metal stairs leading to double doors and a clapboard sign saying Housing Works Bookstore . He holds his hands behind his back and says, “We have reached our destination.”
The place is packed inside. Used books fill shelves so high there are rolling ladders to reach the top.
Spiral stairs lead to an indoor balcony where people are sitting at little tables and eating giant cookies.
A microphone stands on a small stage in front of rows of white folding chairs.
A counter in the back sells coffee and alcohol.
A sign explains that everything in the store is donated, everyone who works here is a volunteer, and all the profits go to supporting people living with HIV/AIDS.
Elijah goes straight to the hardcover art books and opens one with black-and-white photos of mostly naked bodies in elegant poses.
I’m too overwhelmed to know where to start, but I see a whole wall labeled LGBTQ+ .
I scan the titles of memoirs, history books, criticism, poetry, and novels.
They’re all books I’ve never heard of. How many of these include things the writers once couldn’t allow themselves to think about?
On a stand at eye level is a James Baldwin biography focused on his love life.
I take this down along with the others on display: Audre Lorde’s Zami: A New Spelling of My Name , Edmund White’s A Boy’s Own Story , and Susan Stryker’s Transgender History .
They’re all used and very well-priced. I bring them to the register and spend almost all my money to buy them along with a tote bag.
Elijah touches my arm. “The show is starting soon.”
The chairs facing the stage are almost full.
“I thought this was a bookstore.”
We take two seats in the back row. The audience is a mix of ages and skin colors. Everyone has a different fashion sense than people on Long Island, though I don’t know how to describe it. It’s like I haven’t developed the language to understand this place yet.
The host is a big guy with a beard and long gray hair that’s buzzed on the sides.
He wears a tie-dye T-shirt under a blazer, with camo shorts and puffy gold sneakers.
His nails are painted sparkling blue. He welcomes us to The Moth, and says anyone from the audience can put their name in the tote bag onstage and ten people will be randomly picked to come up and tell a story.
The stories will be recorded, and some will go on the podcast and radio show.
“Is this the show Mazzei was talking about?”
Elijah nods. “Are you gonna put your name in?”
“No way,” I say, but I feel the rush of wanting to.
The host pulls a slip of paper out of the tote bag and calls up the first person.
A woman shares a story about her daughters seeing pornography before they’d even learned the truth about Santa Claus.
Next, a guy talks about how getting fitted for glasses made him realize his face hadn’t been touched by someone else in years.
The next person talks about when their mom dated a rich guy.
Instead of walking around the stage with the mic like a comedian, the storytellers all stand still at the stationary mic.
After each story, the host returns and shares how it made him feel.
At the end of a man’s story about his husband passing away, the host hugs him.
The stories are emotional. Heartbreaking. They’re also often hilarious.
A teenager with long dark hair and dark eyeliner gets up, and I adjust my seat. She tells a story about drawing a self-portrait in kindergarten and looking for a crayon that matched her brown skin. It’s thought-provoking and devastating—and, again, hilarious.
I’m so jealous.
Watching her story, I can see how it’s not a question of whether to make the audience laugh or feel. You can do both, and each one makes the other more powerful.
By the end of the show, my body is tingling.
The storytellers chat with one another and exchange contact info. The host talks to the teenager about how she prepared for the performance. They’re not acting like comics after a show, where everyone is trying to one-up each other. They’re genuinely trying to connect.
Elijah’s eyes look for mine, but it must be too much for me, because I look away.
“Let’s go,” I say.
It’s nighttime outside and the streets are made of mismatched stones. The buildings are brick and old. Every window reveals rooms with lamplit couches beneath pieces of art or enormous plants, romantic places to sit and think about big things.
I stop in the middle of the sidewalk and look at Elijah.
“Thank you for bringing me here.” My quiet voice is gone, like a sweater I no longer need. “It helped me see the kind of stories I want to tell. It helped me see the kind of person I want to be.”
Elijah doesn’t look away. “And what kind of person is that?”
I finally understand the correct way to consummate this feeling I have toward him. I would like to kiss him on the lips, and when I’m done, I would like to kiss him on the lips again.
“Uh.” I wonder if all those storytellers onstage had planned exactly what they were going to say. It seems like it would be easier to say things you memorized and to deliver them to a room of people who applaud you. I could say many things that way. “I don’t know if I have the words for it.”
Elijah gives me a long stare. “Would you like me to say what I think?”
“Sure.”
He holds my gaze. After a pause, he says, “I guess I don’t have the words either.”
“Could I hold your hand while we walk, though?”
His response is quick. “Don’t you have a girlfriend? I’ve seen you together.”
“We broke up last night.”
He raises an eyebrow. “And then you messaged me?”
“Well. Yeah. But.”
I’m hot. Or sweating. I’d like to rewind my life. Or maybe it’s the opposite: I want what is right after this moment.
I watch him and he watches me.
Hesitantly, he holds out his hand.
I slip my hand into his.
We walk past closed stores, across busy roads under big billboards, and down little streets covered in posters and flyers and stickers.
When we get to the subway, we decide to walk to the next stop, and we do this with the next one too, until it makes sense to walk the whole way to Penn Station.
When our palms get sweaty, we switch sides and hands.
On the train home, Elijah falls asleep on my shoulder.
I watch my reflection in the window as the backyards and backlots of Long Island pass by in the dark.
I listen to his slow breathing. My brain is blank.
I don’t have the words because I’ve never heard of being this way with someone, I could’ve never conceived of this.
But I don’t need the words. I’m feeling my way forward.