He nods. I don’t want to keep talking about this. The meds dull the physical pain but do nothing for the emotional. In fact, it feels worse. Everything feels heavier.
“Happy thoughts,” I say. “I’m not flying anymore and I need happy thoughts to get back up there before my leg starts hurting again.”
He smiles. “Favorite movie?”
“You first.”
He shrugs. “I don’t know...Avengers: Endgame?”
“Ugh.” I shake my head. “Such a typical straight-guy movie. Pssh...Endgame.”
And just like that it’s out. Out of the closet and into the world. My heart lurches and I’m scared. What if he kicks me out? Shit, what if he kills me? You can’t have civil rights laws when there is no law. But he doesn’t even flinch. Maybe he missed it?
“Go on, then,” he says. “What’s yours?”
“Vertigo.”
He shakes his head. “Never seen it.”
Of course not.
“I’m not surprised. I’m a weirdo. I only know it because my dad was a big movie nerd. He used to make us watch these old classics as a family on Saturday nights. We would each get a week where we picked the movie, but my dad’s only rule when it was my sister’s or my turn was that it had to be more than ten years old.”
“Why ten years?”
I shrug. “We started it when I was ten and he wanted to expose me to movies made before I was born. It just became a rule.”
“So you didn’t get to watch any new movies?” He narrows his eyes. “Did youeven seeEndgame?”
“New movies I could go see with friends. For family movie night it was only older ones unless he or my mom picked it.Vertigowas one of the few my dad picked that I actually liked. It’s Hitchcock, 1958. Everyone lovesPsychoorNorth by Northwest, butVertigois all about toxic masculinity from the Master of Toxic Masculinity himself.”
“I saw thePsychoremake on Netflix.”
I make a face. “You disgust me.”
He smiles. “Favorite food?”
“Lasagna. You?”
“Ice cream.”
“Ice cream doesn’t count,Jamie, it’s dessert.”
“Doesn’t mean it isn’t food.”
“Again, you disgust me.” He still hasn’t brought up my slip. “Favorite date.”
“Movie, then dinner.”
“Inspired, really. You must have been a huge hit with the ladies.” Is this me sussing him out? Am I trying to see if Jamie has any possible interest in me? What an adorable meet-cute that would be to tell our postapocalyptically adopted grandchildren!Pop-Pop pulled a gun on Grandpa after he stepped in a bear trap!
But no, that would be silly, because what are the odds that I step in a bear trapandmeet another gay guy in the middle of the Pennsylvania woods after a viral apocalypse? Before the TV went dark—because the internet went first—most of the estimates said over two billion in the world were dead. I’m way too stoned to do the math, but with those numbers, how many queer people my age could be left?
“All right, smartass,” he says, shaking me from the downward spiral of queer existential dread. “What’s your big date?”
“April twenty-fifth.”
He stares at me like he doesn’t understand. “Christ. Jamie, you’d get these references if you watched a movie outside the Marvel Cinematic Universe.”
