i'm the coyote

Montréal / June 19, 2025

I’ve been writing fiction because it’s easier to make a world than to make sense of mine.

“No, I don’t want no picture of me”, the guy next to me at the bar says. Earlier, a different, even older man, asked another, somehow older man how his kids are doing. He said, “I don’t know”. The guy replied, “That’s sad. That’s really sad.” A moment of silence. You can feel the recession in the air. A retired architect I met earlier today told me I should live in my car to save money. I told him I’ll give it a try.

My apartment is filled with flies because I live with three boys. I leave Montréal in two months. After four years here I’ve mostly learned how to drink beer and quit smoking. On a run today on the mountain, the sky ran gray and poured down over me. I couldn’t help but smile. My shirtless body, instantly soaked. It’s amazing how quickly the world can defeat you. It’s impossible to prepare for it. Summer means sudden rain. And we just learn to be wet.

Graduation came and went. And took with it most of my friends. A few went back to New York. Some back to various suburbs. Some to foreign countries. Mostly, I feel empty. Ready to be filled. I miss my friends, of course, but I’m used to missing friends. I rarely stay in one place for more than a few months at a time. I’m a chronic leaver. But this time, I’m left.

In a city where everyone’s gone, there are a million strangers. Most of them anonymous. I’ve learned plenty of people hate me. I’ve never figured out why. I figure it’s because of my writing. Which means people would have to read my writing. And I guess they do. But I’m left wondering why.

I live in immense guilt. All the time like a lead vest. You can probably see it in my eyes. I try not to look at myself in the mirror these days. I’m afraid I’ll fall in. Preparing to move cities is a lot like preparing for death. And I’ve been doing that too.

I have all these terrifying scenes in my head. Like the worst movie. A man kicking a version of himself lying on the floor, curled up into a little ball screaming “I’M ALIVE I’M ALIVE I’M ALIVE I’M ALIVE”. Cut to a shot looking down a scope. A hunter tracking a deer. The deer’s grazing in a clearing in the woods. It’s dusk. Long day for the hunter. He’s ready for something to happen. And this deer, it’s beautiful. The perfect deer. The deer stops grazing, looks up, and turns his head. He’s looking at the hunter. Through the scope. At us. The hunter squeezes the trigger. Bang. The deer stumbles, keels over, and dies. Cut to a shot behind the back of the hunter. Handheld. The hunter is walking through the woods, towards the dead deer. He steps up to the thing and looks it in the eye. The deer turns its head and looks back at the hunter. He says, “I’ll miss you”. And dies. Cut to a shot overhead. Panning out over the forest. It’s night now. The whole forest is in darkness. Lit only by the moon. And a million little stars. The stars fade to black. Smash cut to a shot that somehow shows the cross section of a house. Like a playhouse, the kinds kids play with, but filled with real people. A mother on the right in her bedroom and her son on the left. It’s night time. The son has a shotgun to his head. He’s crying. But numb. You can tell by the radio static. He pulls the trigger with his toe and blows his brains all over the walls. Coats the whole room red. The mother screams, runs into his room on the left, turns on the overhead light. And the light’s so bright it overexposes the camera. All we see is white. The barest of motions from the mother as she collapses to the ground.

I write stories in my head around these miniature tragedies, Who’s the body? Who’s the son? The deer? Where’s this world? I think it all must be true. We live in a world of infinite possibilities. Right now a man is hugging his kids and telling him he loves them. In exactly an hour he will die in a car accident. A cop will come a half hour later and kick his body to see if he’s alive. I cope with the horrors of this world by partaking in them. Something like that. But it’s all out of love. It has to be.

Earlier on the mountain, the rain made me feel like a kid again. Something I haven’t felt in a while. I’ve felt like a stunted adult. Like Dennis Cooper after he was hit with the axe. Unable to interface with the world around me. At least not in the way it demands. Embittered by circumstance. Like when you were a kid and your favorite toy stopped working because the batteries exploded. I’m the battery.

I’m looking up your name and the city where you were born and I see nothing. Absolutely nothing. Some random PDFs. Unrelated. Not even a Facebook link. I think I must have created you in my mind. A thing I used to do. Now I’m too insular to make a person. I argue in the shower. I read a book a week. And I write constantly. I told you, I’m preparing for death. It’s not that I plan to die any time soon, but that I am oriented towards it. I’m living at the end of the world. But living, nonetheless.

Looking at all my belongings. At least the ones left after my last move. I gave away thousands of dollars of things I figured I didn’t really need. And I was right. Thinking what I’d leave behind and for who. Not because I want to die, remember. Because I’m oriented towards death. Thinking if a bomb went off, I’d carry you. Lifting heavy weights to make that possible. Practicing saving your life to save mine. Memorizing escape routes for a life I can’t help but live. Watching the distance between me and war shrink. Seeing friends hold guns online. Ready to protect a country that wants them dead. But it’s a spirit. We fight for a spirit. A ghost of something. And that’s just human. I’m no better than them. Or you. I’m just the guy with the pen. And my ghosts are more obviously dead. At least they have hope in their eyes when they hold those guns.

I had sex the other night for the first time in months and could barely get hard. And it was completely my fault. Because I’m living this life oriented towards death. I put it in and finished in ten seconds. We lied around for an hour or so. I played with their cat and smoked on their balcony. This life has love. It comes and goes. Just hold on.

Edmund White died. I will miss him more than I can say. He’s somewhat of a hero of mine and he was one of my first supporters. This piece will be automaticlaly sent to his dormant email. Never opened. When I was slightly younger, I imagined he and I could’ve been lovers. If we’d been born in the same era. Maybe we’d go to Fire Island together. Or I could’ve gone to Michigan with him. Or New York. We could’ve lived a life. Instead, we corresponded by email. I will love you forever Edmund. My friend, and my hero.

I got a new tattoo. It’s the first few lines of Hunter S. Thompson’s suicide note. To remind myself I’m alive and he’s not. Things could always be worse. And they will be. Thinking about Road Runner painting a sunset on a tunnel. And thinking I’m the coyote.