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Toronto. They begin discussing the city while I concentrate on appearing interested, wondering if I should go to the bathroom so I can pass by the leathercouch. Soon, however, Trainer’s favorite haunts in Ontario’s capital command my attention. He orders another drink, and attempts to enlighten Rummy and myself.
    â€˜Well, my first time I was eighteen. I’d been chatting with this guy from TO online, and we’d agreed to meet. He was thirty-six. I told my mom I was going to see the Hockey Hall of Fame.’
    â€˜That’s in Canada?’ I ask.
    Trainer ignores me and continues. ‘Got there after nine hours on the Greyhound, and he takes me to this pretty seedy place.’ He pauses. ‘Well, pretty much any bathhouse I’ve been in is seedy. We bypassed the slurp ramp for the hot tubs. You guys know what a slurp ramp is?’
    Rummy and I shake our heads.
    â€˜It’s like this platform with curtains all around you, and in the curtains are slits about waist high to stick your dick through.’
    I imagine Trainer naked, fitting his penis through a hole in a stiff curtain. Immediately his life seems much more interesting than mine.
    â€˜So, whatever, that’s not my bag, we went to the hot tub. It’s like, really crowded. I had to walk down the steps with my wang flopping from side to side until I reached the surface. So the hot tub’s just full of these floating dicks, literally.’
    â€˜So what do you do when you’re in there?’ I want to know.
    â€˜Whatever you want.’
    His second drink finished already, he orders a Bud this time, and winks as he lifts the bottle to his lips. ‘Predictable is boring,’ he says.
    Although I roll my eyes when he says this, I’m often susceptible to the type of people who make these sweeping pronouncements.
    John’s Yellow Submarine is the drink special, written on a chalkboard next to the Pac Man video game. The ingredients are listed as blended vanilla ice cream, Baileys, and banana liqueur. I order one of these next, and it comes with half a banana stuck upright onto the side of the glass.
    Trainer confides that he trusts Rummy because he’s from Canada. There is no particular logic to this, only Trainer’s perception of Canadians as being the coolest people in the world.
    â€˜Canadians are funnier than us,’ he states. ‘And I don’t feel like a homo in Toronto.’
    â€˜And we make great Lifesavers,’ Rummy adds.
    Trainer wants to know what the hell he’s talking about.
    â€˜I like the green ones,’ I say again.
    Bryce arrives beside me at the bar to pay his tab, and tells me he’s meeting someone down the street.
    â€˜A buddy of mine,’ he says. ‘You’ll probably meet him.’
    I want to go with him, to pretend I was just leaving myself, but he’s bought me a beer and I can’t leave it.
    He sets it in front of me saying, ‘Labbatt’s, right?’
    I nod and thank him, and, without breaking eye contact, he says, ‘No problem. The first of many.’
    I don’t turn to watch him go, but I know when he’s gone.
    â€˜He seems nice,’ Rummy says.
    When I leave the bar at two thirty alone, Trainer is walking with difficulty up Main Street, held up by someone half his size.
    He gives me a wave and yells, ‘Juan here is helping me home tonight because Juan is so fucking hot. Isn’t that right, Juan?’
    Juan nods and looks pleased.
    As I walk towards my bike, I have a sense of how importantthis all is. Of how each star is warm and the night is good and the sound of bikes and horses should be recorded so that everyone can hear, everyone can know how important this all is. These thoughts are interrupted by me falling over.

St. Paul, 12:57 p.m.
    That’s what it was like in the beginning; the magic of new people and the openness of sky. The flicker burning of discovery and the sensation of everything