On her first visit, Renata stared.

People often stared. Most knew to eventually temper the impulse and let their eyes linger for only so long. But, on the week of me and Theo’s move, a knock on our door, a tray of butter cookies floating above a palm, an offering, I’d led her into our kitchen for tea and she kept her gaze glued tight. The burns covered half my face, swam down my neck and kissed my clavicle. Skin grafts decades ago hadn’t done much; I’d grown accustomed to them somehow. Now, whenever I brushed my teeth, mussed my hair, pinched my blackheads, I hardly thought of the skin, pink and warped like gravel.

I cleared my throat then took a sip of tea. Renata was still staring. How’d it happen? she asked. Globs of moisture palmed her upper-lip. She scooted her chair a little closer, fastened her chin to her hand, her elbow to her thigh. She was paying attention. She wanted the story.

I crushed my mug to my chest for the heat’s tiny comfort. When I said I had a lot of ideas as a kid, Renata asked me what kinds of ideas.

You could say I was a little paranoid, I said.

Are you still? Renata asked. She had voluminous amber-tinted hair, a face spotted with faint freckles and fine lines. Swollen lips tinged red, though I saw no product’s sheen. Her eyes were green, glinting like gems when they caught the afternoon light. Taken all together, there was something magnetic to her—it wasn’t often that someone paid attention like this, laser-focus on nothing but me. I was her whole world at that moment. I said, Why do you want to know? You seem like someone who has ulterior motives.

Renata rearranged herself on the squat dining room chair, then sat back, spine to flimsy wood. She gestured at my laptop, the papers strewn across the table, and said, What are you working on? Your autobiography?

I’d never write about myself, I said.

She snorted. I bet you always write about yourself.

My eyes wandered around the room. The boxes we’d yet to unpack, a task that had fallen on me. The stack of papers, notes I’d begun in grad school and hadn’t done much else with since. I drifted until I was looking back at the woman I’d just met. I told her the truth then. I said, I thought there was someone in the house with me. Some kind of visitor. I was positive someone kept coming into my room. Every night, like clockwork. And no, don’t think this was some abuse situation. It was this big dark figure. Almost just a shadow. But there was flesh there, something I could have grabbed at if I really wanted to. Believe it or not, I thought I was being visited by aliens. And so I concocted a plan. I brought up the fire starter. Kept it beside me, on my nightstand. And next time the figure was there, I doused it in liquid, tossed a lit match. Only, nothing went up in flames. Just my covers. And then me.

Renata was silent for a moment. You’re telling me the truth, she said.

The truth is rarely beautiful.

She exhaled something deep and long, as though rinsing herself of what I’d just dumped on her. She drummed her palms over her thighs before speaking next. Do you like Vyvanse? she said. I have a prescription. It helps me. But I think, for someone like you, it can be a lot of fun—and something tells me you’re not having a lot of fun.

Over the kitchen table, she broke apart two capsules, squashed at the microbeads with the bottom of her teacup. She offered me a rolled up bill and watched me snort. I haven’t done anything like this in a while, I said. You could say I’m in my straightedge years. You could say I’m in a rut.

I haven’t done much of anything at all, Renata said. With the baby, you know? She jutted her chin at the rocker she’d brought, a baby tucked inside, a cloth draped over its sleeping body. In her visits, the baby would always be asleep.

Renata pointed at the next line she’d cut. All for me. I sucked it up my nose, tilted my head back, a faint burn passing through my head, no more than a ghost. My mind raced and everything was so simple, cast in stark relief. How I felt about my many failures. Life was one long battle, and I seemed to always be holding the short stick. I plunged further with every new line, an unexpected distance growing between me and my scars. I’d completely forgotten about them. I expected, under my Vyvanse fever, for something wild to happen. I expected something like a kiss from Renata, but then she told me it was time for the baby’s feed. This was fun, she said. We should do it again.

By now, I still hadn’t asked for her name. I’m Bertie, I said.

Renata, she said, pearls blinking from her neck. You won’t be forgetting about me anytime soon. Should you do one last line? Her nails were aimed at a neat new row of fine powder.

Renata blew at the steaming cup of tea, her belly pressed up against the dining room table. She asked me if the landlord had ever gotten back to me about the kitchen sink leak. He had. He’s never so quick with me, she said. Rent-control and everything.

Since that first visit, Renata now stopped by most afternoons. She told me in one of our initial meetings that she’d been in the building for over a decade. Though there was much I didn’t know about her still. Like, who the father of her newborn was. I’d never seen her with a man. She rubbed at her belly—she did this often, as though she was pregnant still, or surprised her belly had yet to return to its normal size, something smaller and more defined—while taking quick sips from her cup. I’d tried asking her once and she shut it down. Not all babies have a father, she said, a flick of her finger in the air, the question flung out the window.

Nothing else occupied my afternoons. I was an adjunct and it was summer, what the fall would bring never a guarantee. I’d sent my emails into the season’s ether: UMiami, FIU, Barry, Miami-Dade. Did any of them need me to teach freshman comp? I didn’t mind the bus rides across the city during the semesters, rushing from one neighborhood to another, the hours above the pavement slipping through my fingers—I could so easily lose myself to people watching, a book ignored but propped open on my thighs. But summer was different and it drove me crazy. I sat at my desk and considered the project I’d been toiling away at since graduate school. I wouldn’t make a dent this summer. Like every summer since I graduated.

In the mornings, when the mugginess had yet to seize our throats, I rubbed sunblock over my scars and cozied up at the park, watching the older Polish men do their exercises. One in particular, so sickly thin any hurricane wind would have blown him away, gone for good. In the afternoons, I rubbed expensive lotions across my face and stretched out over the sofa with a book, rewatching HBO shows. Oz. Six Feet Under. The Sopranos. And, like a nightcap to my empty days, I saved an episode of The Wire for last. My eyes darted between the screen and the page. I had so much free time.

Besides Renata, the only other interruptions I got were from my mother’s FaceTimes. She spun the way she always did when I first picked up. She had been a ballerina once and now worked as a security guard at the global headquarters of a popular shoe brand. Her bones were no longer what they used to be, but still she spun and spun. We’d grown closer in the years since my father passed of old age, her with her unconventional hours, me with mine. She asked me if I knew about all this 5G business.

I told her to stay off the internet.

And pizzagate? Why am I just hearing about all of this?

It’s true, I said, a ring of powerful pedophiles runs everything. She was walking, her face smashed up close to the screen, dyed blonde hair brushing the camera. They drink children’s blood and everything, I said. Adrenochrome. How’s your knitting group?

How’s your head?

That’s a dirty joke, you know? I said—she’d just started watching a show about drag queens and suddenly her points of reference had ballooned to what would seem like pure gibberish to any outsider. I sometimes no longer understood her myself.

She asked after Theo then got cut off. I would have told her the truth, that Theo was fine but hardly ever around. He worked in film production. Long hours.

Because of all this, my free time and Theo’s absence, I had quickly grown accustomed to Renata’s visits. Had begun to rely on them even.

One afternoon, she told me about how she routinely drove past Little Havana for rabbit meat she cooked into a stew for her cat. Her cat was allergic to everything else.

And you kept the cat? I asked. I mean, during the pregnancy and all. I looked at the rocker, the baby sound asleep, covered like a parrot in a cage overnight.

Renata blew at her cup, ignoring the question. Her curls touched her shoulders—I’d learned in our conversations that her father was from Cuba and her mother from Northern Florida. Watching her, I couldn’t help but admire her beauty once more, and I could imagine her only growing more beautiful, settling even further into her striking features. Her green eyes glittered.

Renata could see ghosts. She rubbed at her belly, swiped the few crumbs that clung along the edges of her open mouth. She told me all about the spirits of the Garnet Lane complex. She said they swarmed our apartment when the previous tenants lived there. But now the apartment was cleansed. I think those spirits were latched to that family, she said. They were unsavory types. Italians.

It was Friday. I poured a splash of bourbon into my cup.

Renata’s eyes lingered on the porcelain, then a smile.

I miss a strong drink, she said. I was a martini girl, if you can believe that.

We sat together in some long, strange silence after that. I don’t know how many minutes passed before she gestured at her prescription bottle and, suddenly, the desire to be as before emerged.

I didn’t believe Renata. Not because everyone drank martinis, but because I couldn’t see her losing control. She hadn’t offered me drugs again, and I was grateful, didn’t know whether I would have accepted them if she did. Her eyes were always cautiously casting about the room, constantly examining her surroundings, her companions. Nothing went past her, I was sure of this.

Theo and I have a dinner this evening, I said. Might as well get a head start. I took a long swallow before exhaling theatrically.

I think the tenants before you, she said. I think the parents hit their kids.

I stared at Renata. She stared back. What makes you think that? I said.

I heard the slap, she said. The slaps.

From downstairs?

She nodded.

We can hardly hear you at all, I said.

Quiet as a church mouse. She smiled, looked down at her cup, swiped away the lipstick from the rim. I asked her if Theo and I made a lot of noise. Renata shrugged. The usual amount, she said. I called the cops, you know. I couldn’t stand to listen to that poor child cry.

Did the cops do anything?

Do they ever?

Theo crawled into bed around midnight. I’m sorry I had to cancel, he said. He smelled of frankincense; I loved his scent. You could have still gone, he said.

Strips of light fell across Theo’s face. He knew he was handsome but had little idea to what extent. Good-looking is what he called himself, but it was more than that. He had a nose people went under the knife to replicate. A body most would spend hours at the gym to build when he didn’t do much of anything at all. A small part of me was glad he had no idea exactly how good-looking he was. I knew there was no chance of me finding someone else like him. Someone who could be so blind to my imperfections while being so hot at the same time.

And I thought of what it would have looked like if I had gone to the dinner party alone. Everybody probing me with their questions. How’s the book? Is the academic job market really so bad? Have you bought a place yet?

I was tired anyway, I said.

Theo knew not to ask about my manuscript, and asked instead about the novel I was reading, the show I was watching, the walk I took to the bay. In moments like this what we had felt true and solid. I had no reason to doubt it in the first place. Maybe I was just an anxious person after all, something my mother still said to me often. I told him about Renata instead. This despite the fact we already devoted so much of these moments before sleep to her. He said, I can’t imagine raising a baby all on my own.

Then he mentioned he was certain Renata smoked. That he could catch the odor coming from downstairs. He’d said this to me before and I disagreed. I also hadn’t, for some reason, told him about our first encounter. The lines she offered then watched me snort. I said, It’s someone else. I’ve never seen her smoke. It’s got to be the young guys upstairs.

Scent travels upwards, like heat, Theo said. Doesn’t it?

French people smoke while pregnant all the time, I said. Besides, we were all exposed to our parents’ secondhand smoke and we turned out fine.

I stared at the ceiling, the faint water-spots. Were they getting worse? I couldn’t tell. I told myself to keep track of the size and darkness, though I knew this was something I’d forget all about until the next time I was buzzed and laying in bed, and I wondered if our own kitchen sink had been doing the same below, to Renata’s apartment. She never said anything.

Theo’s breath on my neck, warm and sticky. He said, What’s her nursery like? Full of dreamcatchers?

I told him I didn’t know. I tried conjuring the image of the nursery and couldn’t, though I was certain it was perfect. Renata had taste, didn’t she? Theo said, You’ve never been inside her apartment?

I told Theo I hadn’t.

He pressed his nose into my shoulder, nuzzling me. Muffled, he said, Do we even know what she does for money?

She pays very little in rent.

Still, he said, she needs money.

The baby’s father? I offered. Then: Actually, I think she used to model. I’m pretty sure she said that.

Like, twenty years ago? Theo said.

You’re right. I don’t know her at all.

The Garnet Lane Apartments was an oldish complex in Little Haiti with a courtyard that once held beautiful roses but now nothing more than sand, and which stood a block away from a park flooded at all hours with people. Often, bored and neglectful of my project, I passed through the park for a second time in the afternoon. Miami wasn’t a very walkable city—but when money grew tight, we decided to downsize to a single car, a sacrifice I was willing to make. When the pandemic hit, my job security was, somehow, more certain than Theo’s. His gigs vanished while mine swapped to Zoom. The uncertainty of that period had left its mark on us; we were cautious still, paranoid, and had yet to discuss repurchasing a second car. Cutting across the park, I watched all the young sweating bodies stretched out on blankets—what did they do for work? I’d wonder this, and then wonder if they wondered the same about me, the slightly older man with nothing to do. I felt the weight from my stomach jiggle just slightly—I was technically slim but there was something there I’d lost control of, a tightness gone as a result of my sedentary life during the school year—and I’d prod at my core, consider jogging, though I’d never commit to it. I’d forget all about it by the time I returned to the apartment.

Sometimes I’d splurge at one of the food carts. My heart always sank a little when I tapped the card to the screen. I wasn’t earning any money, not during the summer months, and I earned so little to begin with that I could never possibly save any for the stretch between semesters. This was Theo’s money.

I chewed into a slice of plantain and swallowed. I chewed and swallowed until the guilt was overpowered by the taste, rich and sweet. Then my mother FaceTimed me. She spun and spun. When she was all done and settled, the glow of the many security screens lighting up her face into a bluish tint, she asked about Theo. I told her he was working on a film shoot in Coral Gables. A musical reboot of a popular comedy from the early aughts.

You should get a dog, she said Something to keep you company.

It’s too hot for dogs in this city, I said. Besides, once the semester starts, I’ll have no time to care for it. Then I shoved the last plantain into my mouth and sucked on my fingers slick with candied oil. You still have free time in the semester, she said.

I spend it all on the bus.

You should work in magazines. Can you be an editor? I like Town & Country.

If I could get one of those jobs, I would.

Don’t you know people? You went to an Ivy League school.

Everyone I know either dropped out or works in tech now.

She got excited. You should work in tech, she said.

I thought of what my life would be like, writing cheeky copy for a web app. I pictured the advertisements on the bus or Metrorail. Would I be happier? It sounded soulless. I’d miss my free time too much, I said.

My mother popped her tongue, something else she’d learned from drag queens on her TV. There’s no winning with you, she said. I don’t know why you came out so anxious. When I was young, none of us had anxiety. Not the way you and your generation do.

Someone could be breaking in right now and you’d have no idea.

My mother raised her eyes and gave a performative inspection of the live camera feed. Stop scratching at your face, she then said.

I lowered my hand. This happened sometimes, a phantom itch that led to an unconscious scratch. I never realized I was doing it until my mother said so.

When we hung up, I stayed on the bench and watched the fashionable people pound past the streets of what was becoming prime real estate. I worried we’d get priced out again, and soon. My stomach churned. I checked my notifications. No new emails. I scrolled vaguely through Twitter. Nothing of interest. My face felt hot so I squirted a small gob of sunblock over the scars; I had to re-apply the cream several times a day, especially during the summer. When I was done, I checked my emails one more time. Nothing new. Then I got up and left. So many hours left in the day to consider.

I had a baby, she said. More and more, I’m sure this is my life’s mission. I’m going to give this baby everything I never got. It’s going to have all the chances in the world.

In the front hallway to the complex, sweat sliding down my face and back, the scent reached me. Cigarette smoke, reliably noxious. I passed Renata’s door. Sniffed once, twice. And then I kept walking, still uncertain of the odor’s origins.

I was already asleep when Theo came home at ten.

At the park the next morning, I was watching the same Polish men working out when the sickly-looking one thumped in my direction. The skin on his face was thin and pale, the bones and veins bumping up to the surface. Had he begun to recognize me from my early visits? He looked so unwell. Cheeks hollowed out as if formed from two crisp Pringles. But it was his torso that shocked me most; I could have laced my hands across and held him like a coffee mug.

He told me he wished he had gone to grad school. But it was 9/11 the year I graduated college, and I just knew I had to do something, he said. You know?

Oh, I said—somehow, he’d guessed I was an academic. Did I look like one? I felt self-conscious. He said, And so I enlisted in the army. Did eight years. I would have kept going but I got shot.

He turned around, his fingers flicking at the top of his spine where scar tissue throbbed and a small knot rose up through the skin. This was why he sought me out, I thought—we both bore life’s ravishings on our skin for all to see. He said, I couldn’t eat, wash myself. Walk. I’m fine now, though. I was a sniper, can you believe?

I told him I’d never even held a gun.

There’s no pride in killing humans. You do it so often they become just like some animal. It’s like hunting foxes. But no pride. It fucks you up forever.

He then returned to the monkey bars.

I checked our mailbox when I got home. Heat rose in wisps from the courtyard’s sand. I scanned the envelopes between my fingers. Nothing interesting. A few neighbors, faces smeared with sweat, also fished through their mail, also bored by what was in their boxes. They didn’t look so unlike me; nearly all of us were gentrifiers by now. And I wondered if Renata was just as close to them, or was I special? They hobbled past with a grunt and carried an unpleasant scent that lingered in the hallway after they’d left.

I was scrolling through the episode list of Deadwood when Renata knocked on my door. It was teatime. She lugged the same old rocker with the same old blanket covering her sleeping newborn. You always bring the baby during nap time, I said.

Count your blessings, she said.

I offered her cookies I bought from a stall at the farmer’s market the Sunday before. She ate them slowly, cautious of the crumbs, her spine pinned straight to the chair’s back. Her hair was combed into something flat and shiny.

I asked her about being young and in Miami in the 90s. What the scene was like.

She said, That was before my time. I flew the coop just before the recession. I’m not much older than you. How else would I have just had a child? Then: I talk about myself all the time, she said. Tell me about yourself. Tell me about your project.

I once believed in it and now I’m not so sure, I said. I think I only finished it because I needed to submit something, anything, to complete my degree.

I was mildly surprised I was confiding in her like this—I think, secretly, I had been waiting for this moment, to tell someone the truth. I’d never said such a thing explicitly to Theo, though I was sure he knew the reality to the limits of my ambition regardless. Renata nodded. Her eyes swam, I thought, with empathy. She understood my plight. She asked me if I enjoyed teaching.

A moment passed before I told her I didn’t.

Then what are you doing with your life? she said.

That’s a good question. What are any of us doing?

I had a baby, she said. More and more, I’m sure this is my life’s mission. I’m going to give this baby everything I never got. It’s going to have all the chances in the world.

Renata had her eyes set on the rocker, a look that rocked me. Brimming with love and pride and possibility, and it was a look that promised to be eternal: she’d always adore her child. I thought about the look even after Renata left and Theo crept into our sheets, the side of the bed that was so often cool by the time I went to sleep, and I felt empty and alone. I wanted someone to look at me the way Renata had looked at her newborn.

We should leave the city, I said. Take a trip when your project wraps, before the end of the summer. Theo’s eyes were shut. I scanned the ceiling, glossing over the water stain I’d promised to keep track of. Then my gaze fell to the corner of the bed. But there was no figure there, I knew that. Theo said, The shoot wraps then we go into post. You know how it is.

They don’t need you in post, I said.

I’m producer-track now. I think they will.

I turned away from him. I said, It’s not like we can afford it anyway.

Summer was winding down. Then, the first email. The English department would love to have me teach two courses this fall. It was often like this. The emails coming in at the last second in August. Or, even worse, no email but the pleasant surprise that I’d been assigned as an instructor, students already registering for sections of which I had no knowledge.

I was happy. I don’t know why. I didn’t want to teach.

Maybe it was relief I felt.

Or happiness for having accomplished something after months of nothing.

I flew out my door and down the steps to Renata’s.

I knocked, the door sliding open. I stepped inside and called out for her. Nothing. I walked down the hallway, an orange cat yowling before dashing past my legs, and I continued into the kitchen. She was there, scratching at her back, her torso wrapped in a loose nightgown that billowed beside the window. She was bent over a large pot on the stove, steadily stirring a wide wooden spoon. Draped across a chair was the baby’s blanket. Beside the table, the rocker. Fastened inside was a baby made of plastic. A toy.

The smells were overpowering—the stew, the cat. I took a step back and litter crunched beneath my foot. Renata noticed me then. Her neck snapped in my direction before snapping back. I figured you’d find out eventually, she said, working the pot and the spoon.

You’re not a mother, I said.

She flicked the stove off and faced me, her weight against the counter. It’s funny, she said, you never even pushed to see the baby. Nearly everyone wants to see it, even if it’s asleep. Everyone wants to catch a glimpse of a newborn. That soft baby skin. But not you, she said. Her face was unlined and expressionless. Renata could be so hard to read, even in moments like this, of unexpected candor.

I don’t understand. Why?

Because why not?

I saw the drink on her table. It wasn’t a martini but an old fashioned. I asked her why she’d lie about that too. I lie about everything, she said. Haven’t you?

I didn’t lie to you at all, I said.

I mean no harm, she said. I’ve got to pass the time somehow.

Time, she said, it’s all I have. It’s all I don’t want.

You should learn to enjoy it, I said. Soon there won’t be any time left for any of us. Renata pulled out a kitchen chair and sat back. A bowl packed with cigarette butts drowning in ash. She ran her finger along the baby’s plastic head. Don’t you see? she said. That’s what I’m doing.

I was standing in the center of her kitchen, my eyes casting about the room, my mind spinning. Sweat sprouted from my hairline into a crown. I thought of everything she’d told me, everything that could have been a lie. Can you even see spirits? I asked.

She gave a slow nod before tipping her head up. Yes. There’s one right behind you. She said this and I leaked more sweat. Heart thrumming deep in my chest.

I’m joking, she said. There’s nothing behind you.

I sank into the chair opposite Renata and emptied out my lungs. She was looking at me with pity now, her lips lightly puckered, her eyes weary and pained. She said, But I do feel that ghost from your childhood. It’s not far.

You’ve lost all credibility, I said. Don’t you know that?

I live in the space between doubt and truth.

You live in a pile of lies.

You need me just as much as I need you, she said.

We sat together in some long, strange silence after that. I don’t know how many minutes passed before she gestured at her prescription bottle and, suddenly, the desire to be as before emerged. I wanted it. I wanted to be out of my body, mind racing until it spilled out of my nose, a soft pink puddle of no-thoughts on the floor by my feet. I didn’t want to think of Renata’s lies at all. I see it in your eyes, she said.

The eyes of someone who thought he’d been healed but was wrong this entire time.

I hardly notice them now, she said. Your burns.

An inferno on my skin.

An inferno up your nose? She said this and offered me a rolled up bill.

I was walking down 62nd, past the public pool, when my mother FaceTimed me. The sun kept rising, the early heat worse than any day that had come before. The sunblock I’d only just reapplied was melting and white streaks crawled down my chest. When I answered, she spun then prattled on about her knitting group while dropping words and phrases she’d soaked up from drag queens on her TV. Something about water off a duck's back rolls. Sweat collected at my clavicle and beads ran down my sides. I told her there were more important things than knitting and drag queens; my good news had been soured by Renata.

Like what? she said. Your walks?

I stopped beside the laundromat we used when the one in the complex was out of service. The scent of lavender blasting into the sidewalk alongside that ungodly dryer heat. My face was so red and smothered in runny sunblock now, it was as if someone had tossed hot milk at me. I looked into my phone, my mother’s pixelated face bobbing in the center, sometimes scooting a smidge offscreen. I said, Has anyone ever lied to you? I mean, a lie so significant you’re left speechless?

Are the police involved? Are you okay?

I told her it was nothing like that. My mother squinted into her phone’s camera. Then I don’t see the problem, she said. Everyone has their white lies. Their vices. Are you still in love with Theo?

Yes, I’m still in love with Theo, I said, and in that moment this felt like the truth. Because it was true. I had no idea why I ever doubted it in the first place.

Take a breath and move on then, she said.

I took a breath. I walked on.

Someone hopped the fence and tried stealing some new sneakers, my mother said. All of that for some new sneakers? They don’t even cost that much.

Mom, I said. Tell me the story. Of when I was young.

She pushed the phone up to her face until I saw open pores. You know what happened, she said.

I know the story I was told, I said. Was there really no one there?

Honey, she said. There was no one there. You’ve always had an active imagination. It’s why you’re writing books and stuff now. You told me you saw aliens, but you’d been saying stuff like that since you were barely a toddler. I only wish I could have done a better job at showing you your power. You were so much stronger than the dark you were afraid of. You still are.

I’ve made so many mistakes. It’s starting to show. I said this and it was true. Under the clear grip of my crystal mind, everything I’d stored away emerged as fact.

Scars don’t make a human, she said.

But what if that’s the least of my offenses?

Take another breath, she said.

I took another breath and hung up. I was in the park now, the skinny sickly man scrabbling towards me. A breeze from Biscayne Bay blew. I felt better now, now that I was sitting too. He nodded his head and I nodded back. He told me he was an undercover cop. Did I tell you that last time? I forget, he said.

I told him he hadn’t.

Yeah. Undercover now. I feel I can trust you. That’s why I shaved my beard. Buzzed my head. It’s a whole new look.

I considered him, this stranger—we were strangers, why would he confide in me? And my stomach twisted, Renata and her mountain of untruths flashing in my mind. You’re lying to me, I said.

Everyone’s a liar, I said.

Is it me? Do I look so gullible? So trusting? Should I start lying?

The man clucked. He looked sad. He said, Everyone in this city is so goddamn crazy. I thought I could trust you. He waved this, me, away and returned to the monkey bars.

Joshua Vigil is from El Salvador by way of Florida and now lives in the Pioneer Valley, where he's an MFA candidate at UMass-Amherst. His work has appeared in Hobart, Joyland, The Rumpus, and elsewhere.