MACKEREL: As a hero. Unlike you.

PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen-year-old's voice) Tsk tsk tsk. Tell him, babe.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Tell him what, babe? Oh, right. You've been had. Chalk one up for us patient gay Capricorns.

MACKEREL: I'm not into astrology.

PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen-year-old's voice) Fact, my boyfriend quote unquote drives you to the airport. Fact, he makes a detour to pick something up at our house. Fact, the guys you stole that dope from are hiding inside. Fact, they rape and torture and whatever you for two days straight, then inject you with enough dope to kill Shaquille O'Neal, then rape your corpse for another two days. Right, babe?

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Pretty much. Well, rape in the broadest sense. If it's ever been called gay s.e.x, it's in your future.

MACKEREL: (smugly) A hero's still a hero. Arkansas boy's dream to save the world from Bin Laden crushed by evil pedophile ring. Americans love that s.h.i.t.

PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen-year-old's voice) Yeah, until they do the autopsy and find enough sperm in your a.s.s to start a small thirdworld country. We'll see how heroic you are after they drag your whorish, drugged-out lifestyle through the tabloids.

MACKEREL: Well, at least I have an a.s.s. At least my a.s.s isn't digested. At least my a.s.s isn't some low-end Al Qaeda water boy's Taco f.u.c.king Bell. Say something, gay guy. Defend me. What kind of sugar daddy are you?

Josh's boyfriend stops ripping out pieces of the a.s.s, and popping them into his mouth.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Look, Josh. Realism, okay? I'm gay, you're dead, he's thirteen years old, you saw his a.s.s, what do you expect? Is death like Alzheimer's or something?

PSYCHIC: (in a sixteen-year-old's voice) Forget it. So how do I taste anyway? Honestly.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Like blood. Not that I'm complaining.

MACKEREL WAS RESIGNED to his fate as the world's most extremely murdered boy until they reached Josh's boyfriend's front door. Now he's taken a nervous step backward, and his face is clouded over with thinking.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: What now? Your death has so much baggage.

MACKEREL: (ominously) I feel them. I don't mean psychically. I mean whatchacallit, that humanistic word.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Go somewhere more specific with "them" first. I'm no humanist. And when you're gay, "them" just means straight. So define "them" and quickly.

He looks at his watch.

MACKEREL: The former me's. Cute boys.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: You mean like old what's-his-name, my ex?

MACKEREL: For instance.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: So you feel like a blip? Like it's cool I'm so cute to one older rich gay guy and all, but it's not like he's Barry Diller? 'Cos that was old what's-his-name's beef, if memory serves.

MACKEREL: Empathically. That's the word I was looking for.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Break it down.

MACKEREL: Love without s.e.x.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Whoa. Just hold on a minute. What the h.e.l.l are you saying? This is so early Edmund White. You're far too young to remember him. He wrote novels. Do you know what novels are?

MACKEREL: Was Edmund White like Proust? Please say yes.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Yes. Not that I've read Proust. Like all gay guys, I haven't read a novel since 1994.

MACKEREL: I'm too good for you. What does it mean?

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: It means you're ultimate twink. That's why we all keep r.i.m.m.i.n.g you. You're G.o.d. Enjoy.

MACKEREL: But you don't fist f.u.c.k G.o.d.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Says who?

MACKEREL: The Bible.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: You don't have a Bible yet. You have die first. I promise you it'll be Proustian, whatever that means. I'll buy a thesaurus, whatever that is. I'll put in lots and lots of s.e.x so gay guys will buy it. I'll make you look like whoever you want. Name it.

MACKEREL: Okay, who's the cutest boy in the world?

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: YOU got it.

He raises his voice such that the tweaking, soon-to-be gay murderers inside his house will hear every word distinctly.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Guys, cutest boy in the world. What's your guess?

Thousands of m.u.f.fled, gay-sounding voices yell names enthusiastically at the same exact moment.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: One at a time. On second thought, pick a leader.

MACKEREL: They don't deserve me. This is superdepressing.

m.u.f.fLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: Okay, we've got your results. But they're too close to call. How about we just narrow it down, and give you a choice? Any of them will do. You can't lose.

MACKEREL: Agreed. By the way, who are you, leader guy, so I'll know who's the top?

m.u.f.fLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: Me? Carl's my name. I'll tell you what. Here's who I used to be, because I'm just a forty-ish, ugly, gay, gym-going dreg who watches too much p.o.r.n now. But I used to be the slightly queeny but cute enough to make up for it blond boy who hung around in West Hollywood back in the eighties, if you remember that?

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: He's thirteen, dope. But I remember you. It's me. Lawrence, the old but muscular enough to make up for it guy. Ring a bell?

m.u.f.fLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: Ding, yeah. How's it hanging?

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: It's hanging, dude.

m.u.f.fLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: G.o.d bless the past, right?

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: You said it.

m.u.f.fLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: Anyway, according to our poll, the cutest boys in the world are Taylor Hanson circa "Mm Bop," duh. Aaron Carter at any age, under any circ.u.mstances, duh. Devon Sawa circa that TV movie called something like Tornado. Aaron Carter. Nick Carter before he got chunky. Leonardo Di Caprio pre-" The Beach." And did I say Aaron Carter? If not, Aaron Carter.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Tough choice.

MACKEREL: Who's the first one he said again?

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Taylor Hanson circa "Mm-Bop."

MACKEREL: HIM.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: (yelling) He chose early Taylor Hanson. How hot is that?

m.u.f.fLED GAY-SOUNDING VOICE: s.h.i.t. Fine, we're so h.o.r.n.y and f.u.c.ked up on crystal meth that we'll deal with the fact that he isn't Aaron Carter.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: (to Mackerel whispering) Pick Aaron Carter.

MACKEREL: Why?

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Why?! Am I losing my mind?

MACKEREL: You mean that "Aaron's Party" dork?

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: Bingo.

MACKEREL: (mournfully) Him then. But your pettiness is giving me pause.

Behind Josh's boyfriend's front door, the m.u.f.fled good news spreads and m.u.f.fled zippers start unzipping.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: So any last words? I mean before you just start saying ouch and all that?

MACKEREL: Yeah, actually. Let history record that a boy who only wanted to serve humanity by serving himself was sidetracked by the jihad that h.o.m.oeroticism has unleashed upon the cute. My intellect could have saved us, had we known me, but my a.s.s was too great a distraction, albeit for quite understandable reasons. That's it, I guess. Oh, and a secret. I was just a straight boy who liked being rimmed and told older gay guys he was gay because his girlfriends were so prissy. I don't deserve to die gay, therefore. Think about it. After you've thought about it, talk to me through a psychic of your choice, and I'll tell you the truth of life. Then blow yourselves up in a crowded place. See if I care. Oh, and anarchy rules.

JOSH'S BOYFRIEND: You have a point. But you're so f.u.c.king cute.

MACKEREL: (sourly) Let's just do it, okay?

He puts his hand on the doork.n.o.b.

MACKEREL: But thanks. I am, aren't I? Tell the world.

POLE SHIFT.

Justin Taylor.

WOULD THE GRa.s.sES get ejected from the soil or sucked down?

Would the crosstown bus condense or striate or disjoin?

Would all the scratched silverware in all the restaurants up and down Cathedral Parkway start keening like churchbells or amp feedback; a mult.i.tude of lunch specials cast as the resonant chorus of a dissonant opera?

Trees will redistribute their shadows with thoughtless grace, like smokers circulating their sloppy seconds or children camping by the mailbox in wait of G.o.d's return letter. And what about the woman in the white dress, who doesn't know the sun is a p.o.r.nographer featuring the wild humanity of her a.s.s and lips when she drifts like a veil between me and the light? She's a curvaceous, transient spectacle unfettered by prospects.

In the considered unfolding she'd be another dead one, swept up in the great tide of suddenly airborne souls, invisible as a model Party member. That's obvious and perfect knowledge. What we know about pole shifts or other apocalypses is so boldly hypothetical as to be beyond refuting, like her decision to forgo underwear this morning or the sun's casual warmth. How good must it feel to access that G.o.dly light through the loose cotton folds of this bright item that she does not know is also a twoway mirror? She's closer than ever to being unlimited. I'm just the guy who noticed. But then again maybe we've got something good between ussharing the paradoxic truths of nakedness and death, driven by a radical honesty never to be replicated or understood. Her not-knowing ticks like a bomb clock nestled in the crux of our crippled, untellable secret: everything she'd never reveal across ten years spent as loyal lovers.

MISS KANSAS.

ON JUDGMENT DAY.

Kelly Link.

WE ARE SITTING on our honeymoon bed in the honeymoon suite. We are in a state of honeymoon, in our honey month. These words are so sweet: honey, moon honey, moon. This bed is so big, we could live on it. We have been happily marooned-honey marooned-on this bed for days. I have a pair of socks on and you've put your underwear on backwards. I mean, it's my underwear, which you've put on backwards. This is perfectly natural. Everything I have is yours now. My underwear is your underwear. We have made vows to this effect. Our underwear looks so cute on you.

I lean towards you. Marriage has affected the laws of gravity. We will now revolve around each other. You will exert gravity on me, and I will exert gravity on you. We are one another's moons. You are holding on to my feet with both hands, as if otherwise you might fall right off the bed. I think I might float up and hit the ceiling, splat, if you let go. Please don't let go.

How did we meet? When did we marry? Where are we, and how did we get here? One day, we think, we will have children. They will ask us these questions. We will make things up. We will tell them about this hotel. Our room overlooks the ocean. We have a balcony, although we have not made it that far, so far.

Where are we and how did we get here? We are so far away from home. This bed might as well be a foreign country. We are both a little bit homesick, although we have not confessed this to each other. We remember cutting the cake. We poured punch for each other, we linked our arms and drank out of each other's gla.s.ses. What was in that punch?

We are the only honeymooners in this hotel. Everyone else is a beauty pageant contestant or a beauty pageant contestant's chaperone. We have seen the chaperones in the halls, women armed with cans of hairspray and little eggs containing emergency pantyhose, looking hara.s.sed but utterly competent. Through the walls, we have heard the beauty pageant contestants talking in their sleep. We have held water gla.s.ses up to the walls in order to hear what they were saying.

As honeymooners, we are good luck tokens. As if our happiness, our good fortune, might rub off, contestants ask us for a light: they brush up against us in the halls, pull strands of hair off our clothing. Whenever we leave our bed, our room-not often-two or three are sure to be lurking just outside our door. But today-tonight-we have the hotel to ourselves.

The television is on, or maybe we are dreaming. Now that we are married, we will have the same dreams. We are watching (dreaming) the beauty pageant.

On television, Miss Florida is walking across the stage. She's blond and we know from eavesdropping in the hotel bar that this will count against her. Brunettes win more often. Three brunettes, Miss Hawaii, Miss Arkansas, Miss Pennsylvania, trail after her. They take big slow steps and roll their hips expertly. The colored stage lights bounce off their shiny sweetheart dresses. In television interviews, we learned that Miss Arkansas is dyslexic, or maybe it was Miss Arizona. We have hopes of Miss Arkansas, who has long straight brown hair that falls all the way down her back.

You say that if we hadn't just gotten married, you would want to marry Miss Arkansas. Even if she can't spell. She can sit on her hair. A lover could climb that hair like a gym rope. It's fairy-tale hair, Rapunzel hair. We saw her practicing for the pageant in the hotel ballroom with two wild pigs, her hair braided into two la.s.soes. We heard her say in her interview that she hasn't cut her hair since she was twelve years old. We can tell that she's an old-fashioned girl. Please don't let go of my feet.

We have to admit that we are impressed by Miss Pennsylvania's dress. In her interview, we found out that she makes all of her own clothes.This dress has over forty thousand tiny sequins handst.i.tched onto it. It took a year and a day to st.i.tch on all those sequins, which are supposed to look from a distance like that painting by Seurat. Sunday Afternoon on the Boardwalk. It really is a work of art. Her mother and her father helped Miss Pennsylvania sort the sequins by color. She has three younger brothers, football players, and they all helped, too. We imagine the pinp.r.i.c.k sequins glittering in the large hands of her brothers. Her brothers are in the audience tonight, looking extremely proud of their sister, Miss Pennsylvania.

We are proud of Miss Pennsylvania as well, but we are fickle. Miss Kansas comes out onto the stage, and we fall in love with her feet. Don't let go of my feet. We would both marry Miss Kansas. You squeeze my foot so tight when she comes out on stage in her blue checked dress, the blue ribbon in her hair. She's wearing blue ankle socks and ruby red shoes. She practically skips across the stage. She doesn't look to the right, and she doesn't look to the left. She looks as if she is going somewhere. When Miss Kansas leaves the stage we instantly wish that she would come back again.

I wish I had a pair of shoes like that, you say. I say your feet are too big. But if I had a pair like that, I would let you wear them. Now that we are married, our feet will be the same size. We are proud of Miss Pennsylvania, we love Miss Kansas, and we are afraid of Miss New Jersey. Miss New Jersey's red hair has been teased straight up into two horns. She has long red fingernails and she is wearing a candy-red dress that comes up to her nipples. You can see that she isn't wearing pantyhose. Miss New Jersey hasn't even shaved her legs. What was her chaperone thinking? (We have heard rumors in the hall that Miss New Jersey ate her chaperone. Certainly no one has seen the chaperone in a few days.) When she smiles, you can see all her pointy teeth.

Miss New Jersey's complexion is greenish. She has small pointy b.r.e.a.s.t.s and a big a.s.s and she twitches it from side to side. She has a tail. She twitches her a.s.s, she lashes her tail; we both gasp. Her tail is prehensile. She scratches her big a.s.s with it. It is indecent and we are simultaneously dismayed and aroused. The whole audience is aghast. One judge faints and one of the other judges douses him with a pitcher of ice water. Miss New Jersey purses her lips, blows a raspberry right at the television screen, and exits stage left.

Well, well, we say, shaken. We huddle together on the enormous bed. Please don't let go, please hold on to my feet.

SOME OF THE other contestants: Miss Idaho wants to work with children. Miss Colorado raises sheep. She can shear a sheep in just under a minute. The dress she is wearing is of wool she cut and carded and knit herself. The pattern is her own. This wool dress is so fine, so thin, that it seems to us that Miss Colorado is not actually wearing anything at all. In fact, Miss Colorado is actually a man. We can see Miss Colorado's p.e.n.i.s. But possibly this is just a trick of the light.