How are you? people ask, and we had grown used to saying that we are fine. Most of the time, after all, these were just pleasantries, greeting cards exchanged with just a signature. Fine was enough to pass, but was not meant to uncover the true contents of our hearts.
After everything changed, we changed too. We still answered, Fine, but then we exchanged shrugs. We signaled each other with our twisted mouths. Well, we began to say next, as fine as can be given the circumstances.
Take him, the new mother said in a small, exhausted voice. The baby had not stopped squalling since his unexpected arrival, and their apartment was so crowded and so small. I don’t know what to do.
The sister had not given the baby’s fist the opportunity to clench her finger. She did not want to fall in love.
They wrapped him in a blanket. The sister held him all the way to the hospital. We found him, she said as she handed him to the nurse, whispering a silent prayer he would end up with what he needed.
I arrived at the casino town expecting the ringing of slot machines, the heartbeat-blink of neon. But boards blocked the doors, cars sat abandoned in valet lanes, and, at one outdoor bar, glasses of beer had been left to go flat.
In the neighborhoods, windows in a few apartments glowed dimly, but no one walked the cracked sidewalks. Potholes pockmarked the roads. I passed a lawn overtaken by weeds, their seedy tops silhouetted against a peeling building.
I had been here before, during the boom. I remembered the clink of glasses, the sound of coins falling into trays.
Thanks to those who rode wheelchairs, strapped babies to their backs, leaned on canes, held hands with trans lovers. Thanks to those who overwhelmed Chicago and marched anyway, and to the four who marched in Lilly, Pennsylvania. Thanks to those who marched in Edinburgh, in Buenos Aires, in Dar Es Salaam, in Guam, in Seoul. Thanks to every body, every soul, every beautiful, resolute face.
We are mighty, yawped the collective. We are not afraid, and we are ready to do the work. If you come for one of us, you come for us all.
The first thing to go was the amusement park, the roller coasters and merry-go-rounds imploded in the name of serious business. The pools went next, because there is something calming about lane lines bobbing in blue water, and this is not a time for relaxation. Food tasted like bitter dust, so there was no longer a need for farmers markets and restaurants. The din of shovels against stone drowned out the symphonies.
Colors dulled, plants withered, lights faded, handshakes went limp. It grew harder to walk, then, as if gravity itself clutched at our ankles.
Sixteen years ago, I led a caravan of friends with a rental truck loaded with all my belongings. I was driving away from my marriage along a ridge overlooking Washington DC, moving on a January day as cold and dark as my relationship.
Along that ridge, a motorcade passed in the other direction, lights on, sirens off. It was the suddenly-former Vice President, returning to civilian life after a heartbreaking transition.
At my new apartment, a dozen friends assembled my bed, arranged my kitchen, unpacked books. With each action, they set the stage for the light to return.
The moon rose at the edge of the continent, rose so large she thought she might be able to touch it if she was just willing to reach out her hand. But she had tried that before, learned the hard way, in fact, that no matter how close it is, the moon is still out of reach.
It’s the biggest we’ve ever seen, her friends said. We won’t see another like this for decades.
But she knew the truth. One moon is just like the next, and they all wane to nothing.
100 Proof 