But if so—why not? Maybe we look into mirrors not merely to seek beauty, regardless how illusive, but to make sure, despite the facts, that we are still here. That the hunted body we move in has not yet been annihilated, scraped out. To see yourself still yourself is a refuge men who have not been denied cannot know.

I read that beauty has historically demanded replication. We make more of anything we find aesthetically pleasing, whether it’s a vase, a painting, a chalice, a poem. We reproduce it in order to keep it, extend it through space and time. To gaze at what pleases—a fresco, a peach-red mountain range, a boy, the mole on his jaw—is, in itself, replication—the image prolonged in the eye, making more of it, making it last. Staring into the mirror, I replicate myself into a future where I might not exist. And yes, it was not pizza bagels, all those years ago, that I wanted from Gramoz, but replication. Because his offering extended me into something worthy of generosity, and therefore seen. It was that very moreness that I wanted to prolong, to return to.

It is no accident, Ma, that the comma resembles a fetus—that curve of continuation. We were all once inside our mothers, saying, with our entire curved and silent selves, more, more, more. I want to insist that our being alive is beautiful enough to be worthy of replication. And so what? So what if all I ever made of my life was more of it?

“I have to throw up,” you said.

“What?”

“I have to throw up.” You rush to your feet and head to the bathroom.

“Oh my god you’re serious,” I said, following you. In the bathroom, you knelt at the single toilet and immediately hurled. Though your hair was tied in a bun, I knelt and, with two fingers, held your three or four strands of loose hair back in a mostly obligatory gesture. “You okay, Ma?” I spoke to the back of your head.

You hurled again, your back convulsing under my palm. Only when I saw the urinal beside your head flecked with pubic hair did I realize we were in the men’s bathroom.

“I’ll buy some water.” I patted your back and got up.

“No,” you called back, your face red, “lemonade. I need a lemonade.”

We leave the Dunkin’ Donuts heavier with what we know of each other. But what you didn’t know was that, in fact, I had worn a dress before—and would do so again. That a few weeks earlier, I had danced in an old tobacco barn wearing a wine-red dress as my friend, a lanky boy with a busted eye, dizzily watched. I had salvaged the dress from your closet, the one you bought for your thirty-fifth birthday but never wore. I swirled in the sheer fabric while Trevor, perched on a stack of tires, clapped between drags on a joint, our collarbones lit sharply by a pair of cell phones placed on the floor dusted with dead moths. In that barn, for the first time in months, we weren’t afraid of anybody—not even ourselves. You steer the Toyota home, me silent beside you. It seems the rain will return this evening and all night the town will be rinsed, the trees lining the freeways dripping in the metallic dark. Over dinner, I’ll pull in my chair and, taking off my hood, a sprig of hay caught there from the barn weeks before will stick out from my black hair. You will reach over, brush it off, and shake your head as you take in the son you decided to keep.

The living room was miserable with laughter. On the TV the size of a microwave, a sitcom blared a tinny and fabricated glee no one believed in. No one but Trevor’s dad, or rather, not so much believed, but surrendered to, chuckling in the La-Z-Boy, the bottle of Southern Comfort like a cartoon crystal in his lap. Each time he raised it, the brown drained, till only the warped colors from the TV flashed through the empty glass. He had a thick face and close-cropped pomaded hair, even at this hour. He looked like Elvis on his last day alive. The carpet under his bare feet shiny as spilled oil from years of wear.

We were behind the old man, sitting on a makeshift couch salvaged from a totaled Dodge Caravan, passing a liter of Sprite between us, giggling and texting a boy in Windsor we’d never meet. Even from here, we could smell him, strong with drink and cheap cigars, and pretended he wasn’t there.

“Go ahead, laugh.” Trevor’s dad barely moved, but his voice rumbled. We could feel it through the seat. “Go ahead, laugh at your father. Y’all laugh like seals.”

I searched the back of his head, ringed with the chalky TV light, but saw no movement.

“We not laughing at you, man.” Trevor winced and put the phone in his pocket. His hands dropped to their sides as if someone had brushed them off his knees. He glared at the back of the chair. From where we sat, only a fragment of the man’s head was visible, a grab of hair and a portion of his cheek, white as sliced turkey.

“You gonna man me now, huh? You big, that it? You think I’m gone in my mind but I ain’t, boy. I hear you. I see things.” He coughed; a spray of liquor. “Don’t forget I was the best seal trainer at SeaWorld. Orlando ’85. Your mother was in the stands and I lifted her off her seat with my routine. My Navy Seals, them pups. I was the general of seals. That’s what she called me. The general. When I told them to laugh, they laughed.”

An infomercial buzzed on the set, something about an inflatable Christmas tree that you could store in your pocket. “Who the hell would want to walk around with a goddamned Christmas tree in their pocket? Tired of this country.” His head rolled to one side, making a third fat roll appear on the back of his neck. “Hey—that boy with you? That China boy with you, huh? I know it. I hear him. He don’t talk but I hear him.” His arm shot up and I felt Trevor flinch through the couch cushion. The old man took another swig, the bottle long empty, but wiped his mouth anyway.

“Your uncle James. You ’member James right?”

“Yeah, sort of,” Trevor managed.

“What’s that?”

“Yes, sir.”

“That’s right.” The old man sank further into his chair, his hair shining. The heat from his body seemed to be radiating, filling the air. “Good man, made of bone, your uncle. Bone and salt. He whooped them in that jungle. He did good for us. He burned them up. You know that, Trev? That’s what it is.” He went back to being motionless, his lips moved without affecting any part of his face. “He told you yet? How he burned up four of them in a ditch with gasoline? He told me that on his wedding night, can you believe it?”

I glanced at Trevor but saw only the back of his neck, his face hidden between his knees. He was aggressively tying his boots, the plastic stringheads ticking through the eyelets as his shoulders jerked.

“But it’s changed now, I know that. I ain’t stupid, boy. I know you hate me too. I know.”

[TV laughter]

“Saw your mom two weeks ago. Gave her the keys to the storage in Windsor Locks. Don’t know why took so long to get her damn furniture. Oklahoma don’t look too good on that one.” He paused. Took another phantom swig. “I made you fine, Trev. I know I did.”

“You smell like shit.” Trevor’s face went stone-like.

“What’s that? What I say—”

“Said you smell like shit, dude.” The TV lit Trevor’s face grey save for the scar on his neck, whose reddish-dark tint never changed. He got it when he was nine; his old man, in a fit of rage, shot a nail gun at the front door and the thing ricocheted. Blood so red, so everywhere, it was Christmas in June, he told me.

“You heard me.” Trevor set the Sprite down on the carpet, tapped my chest, indicating we’re leaving.

“You gonna talk like that now?” the old man sputtered, his eyes stuck on the screen.

“The fuck you gonna do?” Trevor said. “Go ’head, do something, make me burn.” Trevor took a step toward the chair. He knew something I didn’t. “You done?”

The old man breathed in place. The rest of the house was dark and still, like a hospital at night. After a moment he spoke, in a strange high-pitched whine. “I did good, baby.” His fingers fidgeted the armrest. The people in the sitcom danced off his slick hair.

I thought I saw Trevor nod once or twice, but the TV could’ve been playing tricks.

“You just like James. That’s right. I know. You a burner, you gonna burn them up.” His voice wobbled. “See that? That’s Neil Young. A legend. A warrior. You like him, Trev.” He motioned toward the poster by the hall as the door closed across him, clickless. We slipped into the frosted air, walked to our bikes, the old man droning on, muffled behind us.