"So ... what's new and exciting?" he said. "Anything to share?"

I knew instantly what he was getting at. The way he phrased it. His posture-arms crossed, pelvis thrust forward. The half-smile.

"Anything you'd like to fill me in on?" he added.

"The file's right there," I said, gesturing to the red folder on the coffee table. I turned back to my work. "In case you haven't noticed, I've been a tad busy lately."

"Yes," he said, scooping up the paperwork, "you've been very busy, haven't you?"

"Yes, I have. Extremely. And it's not like you've been home at all. It's not like we've had a chance to chat about what's going on."

"True. I have been far, far away in the wilderness of Lawrence and Leslie. How could you possibly reach me up there in the outer limits?"

Snide. I didn't respond.

"A thirty-second phone call or a ten-second text message would've been much too much time out of your schedule to alert me to a development as trivial as this."

"Look at me," I said. "Smell me. I haven't showered in two days. I haven't eaten hot food in a week. I've got a brutal exam in the morning, and I've had four major papers due. This is not some big subterfuge or secret. OK? If it were, would I leave the freaking doc.u.ments lying out on the table? I mean, you are still living here, are you not? Or have you officially moved into Phil's place now?"

"So you planned to tell me about this, you just didn't have the time to call or text?"

"That's right. Now, do you mind if I get back to my work?"

"Go ahead. You don't mind if I have a look at how you structured things, do you?" He sat beside me on the couch and opened the file.

"Knock yourself out." I tried to focus on my reading but had to keep restarting the same paragraph as I braced myself for the tirade.

"Wow. This is interesting," he said. "You've made yourself secretary, treasurer, chief executive officer and chief operating officer."

"That's very typical," I said. "Do you know anything about incorporating? I had to do this as quickly as possible. If you're not happy with it, we can change it."

"And Eldrich is president. Nice. You didn't want to be prezzy as well?"

"Funny."

"You know what the really funny thing is ... I don't see my name anywhere in here. You and Eldrich appear to be the only shareholders in this ent.i.ty."

"In case you haven't noticed, Eldrich and I were each allotted 250 shares. There are one thousand shares available. I left room to add you later."

"Oh that's big of you. But if Phil kicks off tomorrow, you and Eldrich own his house, don't you?"

"No. The corporation would own it. The Answer Inst.i.tute would own it. And it would be used as Phil intended, to carry on Eldrich's work."

John laughed.

"And your insensitive reference to Phil 'kicking off' makes me think I did the right thing."

"So you admit you intentionally excluded me?"

"Look, I had to get this done as quickly and efficiently as possible. I didn't have time to call you up and start debating all the minutiae. I left room for changes. It's easy to change."

"But you just said you did the right thing by excluding me. So which is it? Efficiency or bloodsucking greed?"

"What? Greed? Oh my G.o.d! I was trying to honour Phil's wishes!"

"Right. This from the woman who trolls the MLS every night, drooling over granite countertops and hardwood floors."

"Um, h.e.l.lo! If I were trying to steal Phil's house, why would I have divided shares equally between me and Eldrich? Why wouldn't I have given myself more shares, more control? It's not like Eldrich even asked to see this."

"I don't know. Maybe it's easier to settle for half a giant estate than to have Eldrich raise a stink over a whole estate?"

"Uch, you're full of it! And if that's what you think about me, we're done." I stormed off to take a p.i.s.s. John followed me to the bathroom. He softened his tone considerably then. He obviously wasn't ready to be done. Suddenly, he was all puppy-dog eyes and wounded feelings.

"OK. So, you wanted to honour Phil's wishes. Fine. I believe you. But why didn't you include me? I thought we were a couple. I thought we were in this together."

"We are. And I'm sorry, I just-I guess at the time I was thinking of the worst-case scenario. If Phil dies, what happens to his place? Who is going to honour his wishes, and who is just going to take advantage?"

"That's a very good question."

"Hey, I'm not the one sponging off the guy! And you know as well as I do that you think the Inst.i.tute and Eldrich are full of c.r.a.p."

"But you don't?"

"No, I don't. I think there's truth in a lot of what Eldrich says."

"When there's real estate involved, you're a believer?"

"Uch, I have to study!" I pushed by him and went back to the couch. John stayed in the bathroom. I heard the shower start. A full half-hour later, he emerged, steamy and naked, his d.i.c.k plump and swinging. He had obviously fluffed it up to show off.

"Look," he said, "I'm sorry. And you're right, if anyone's behaviour has been suspect, it's mine. I have accepted supplies from Phil, and the use of the studio. But that doesn't mean I wouldn't honour his dying wishes. Phil and I are pals. I really dig the little guy."

"OK," I said. "And you know I feel the same way, right?"

"Yeah. And you are the one with the open mind. I shouldn't have doubted you."

"You know I've always admired Eldrich for trying to help people. I actually like a lot of the people. Heather especially. And Drew's really sweet."

"Seriously? He looks like the pimply virgin who shoots up the school."

"He's actually very nice and very eager to help out. Not that you've gotten to know any of them ..."

"Oh, I've gotten to know them. Especially in the last two weeks. I've seen them in their pyjamas."

I laughed.

"C'mere ..." he said, opening his arms. He opened those strong arms and invited me in. He looked good. He had the kind of body I like. Thick.

"I stink," I said, moving into the damp, warm embrace.

"I don't care." He held me tight and whispered hot into my ear, "I'm totally going to f.u.c.k you."

At the time I thought it was pure s.e.x, and exactly the stress break I needed, but in retrospect I wonder if he maybe meant it another way.

Eldrich

Nine thousand BC in a cave in the Sahara Desert, a rock painting of a man with one hand on a mushroom and the other on the spiral of life. In the Chapel of Plaincourault, in Indre, France, a fresco of Adam and Eve standing on either side of a magic mushroom tree-the real Tree of Knowledge? Mushrooms depicted in Mayan temples, mushroom statuettes in Aztec ruins. Mushrooms in the stained-gla.s.s window in Chartres Cathedral, which ill.u.s.trates St. Eustace's vision-what could have brought that on? Amanita muscaria. The bread of life. Manna from heaven. Exodus 16, verse 14: And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness there lay a small round thing, as small as the h.o.a.r frost on the ground. A small round thing in the "wilderness"-ancient translation of wilderness = pasture-in the morning dew! Verse 15: And when the children of Israel saw it, they said one to another, It is manna. And Moses said unto them, This is the bread that the Lord hath given you to eat. Manna. Manna = mushrooms!

John 6:31: Our fathers did eat manna in the desert; as it is written, He gave them bread from heaven to eat. John 6:51: I am the living bread that came down from heaven ... The bread is my flesh, which I will give for the life of the world. Jesus's flesh = Amanita muscaria.

Flesh of the G.o.ds.

Teonancatl.

My eyes had been opened and the path forward was clear. The Answer Inst.i.tute would embrace the holy sacrament and spread enlightenment to all those who wished to be cosmically connected and spiritually reborn. My deepest wish was to begin cultivating and disseminating as soon as possible. Alas, Steve had to start the process without me, as I was summoned by Phil to New York City.

John

You know what they say about flies and honey? So true. But I used a different sticky substance to catch my fly-a wily Diptera who had taken legal ownership of the Inst.i.tute while I was paying more attention to art than commerce (it is my way). A trip home and a lengthy and tender lovemaking session was clearly in order. I capped it off with a full-body, ylang-ylang lotion rubdown-including ten minutes on each bony foot, after which Amy (unbidden) offered to change the structure of the Answer Inst.i.tute, Inc., and make me chief executive officer with an equal portion of preferred shares.

No frogmarching required.

We met after her exam the following day and sauntered hand in hand to a wildly affordable, storefront lawyer in the Junction to make the requisite changes. Randolph E. Clapp, LL.B.-knowledgeable, competent, possessing the filthiest carpet I've seen outside of a pub. He sorted it out in short order. Thanks, Clapp. Although I was itching to immediately return to work in the bubble, I then accompanied my fly to her parents' house to feed and fondle a dandruffy, foul-smelling cat called (unimaginatively) "Jasmine." This proved beyond a doubt that my doting behaviour had nothing to do with corporate matters, and Amy, who that very day had dispatched with school duties for the season, was high-stepping. After preparing a decent meal of canned vegetarian chili and freshly baked ACE garlic bread, she took me upstairs to see her childhood room. I feigned interest in various knick-knacks and mementoes, tsk-tsked the fact that her sister, Allison, had been given the larger, skylighted room next door, a.s.sured her she was far more attractive than this large-roomed sister, beaming from a photo atop the dresser, then plowed her hard on her narrow bed (with Tori Amos and David Bowie staring down at me from postered walls). I was subsequently rewarded with a twenty-minute back tickle complete with Amy's first avowals of amour (I was the bestus boyfriend ever), which made the trip to the Beaches and all that fawning over fat, fetid Jasmine entirely worth it.

Did she mean what she said? Who knows?

Maybe it was true that she'd excluded me from the initial incorporation because she felt I was taking advantage of Phil. It could have been true. And at that moment in time, I certainly wanted it to be true. But I honestly couldn't tell. I didn't know if we were two people who really dug each other but didn't quite trust each other, or if we were two people who didn't trust each other an iota and were now pretending to be in love.

Would I have preferred it to be the former? Of course. But was I willing to be a rube?

Trust no one were the last words my father ever spoke to me (before my mom grabbed the phone and said, No, no, Johnny. Better to be betrayed than a person who can't trust).

Hmm.

After all the bedroom lovey-dovey, Amy and I went to the bas.e.m.e.nt and drank ironic whiskey sours-her parents' c.o.c.ktail of choice-at an actual barlike structure. We played Ping-Pong (be-yotch beat me every time) and likely would have just imbibed ourselves goofy if I hadn't received a call from Eldrich saying that Phil had taken a bad turn. He'd developed an infection that had morphed into septicemia. Eldrich was leaving for New York in an hour. I asked if he wanted me to go with him (shockingly, I still hadn't seen the new MoMA), but he said no, that Phil's caregivers had arranged for one ticket only and, anyway, he wanted me to return to Elderbrook to supervise the various individuals who were now shacked up there: Mushroom Steve; Catelyn and her daughter, Staci; ubiquitous hippie-dippies Mindy and Alexa; and some acne-ravaged sad-sack named Drew who just that day had settled himself and two dozen plastic boxes containing the entirety of his possessions into Phil's family room. Yeesh.

Poor Phil. I felt bad for the guy, I honestly did. The possibility of him dying became all too real all of a sudden. I thought of him tiny and depleted in a hospital bed, his blood boiling with bacteria. I thought about his giggly laugh, his bell-bottomed lululemons, the way he addressed me as "Handsome." Phil had been very generous with me. And kind. Now he was dying in New York City, with who knows who at his side? I thought of his family in Singapore. Shouldn't someone be contacted? Wouldn't they want to know? How sad was it if they just didn't care? Or worse, if they were relieved?

Amy was on her third whiskey sour when I shared what was going on. "Holy s.h.i.t," she said, choking on a sip, her eyes widening. She jumped up and started gathering gla.s.ses and lemon rinds. "We'd better get back," she said, briskly tidying. She was excited. I could practically hear the hamster wheel spinning fast in her brain as she contemplated the consequences of Phil's demise. I had a flash of Amy taking over Phil's house-propped on fat pillows, eating bonbons in his bed, hanging her clothes in his walk-in closet, redesigning his kitchen with her beloved Property Brothers. I didn't like it. Not a bit.

I knew in my heart I didn't want Phil to die. I said as much to Amy and added: "I think it would be colossally unfair for Phil to expire and have wastes of s.p.a.ce like Mindy and Alexa swanning around his house."

"Yeah," she said, distracted. "Maybe we should take a cab? It'll be a lot faster."

"What are you looking for?"

"My purse. It's probably upstairs ..."

I followed her to the main floor, where she called a taxi ("The Inst.i.tute can pay, right?"), loaded/started the dishwasher and gave Jasmine a series of overly effusive goodbye nuzzles. Her eyes were bright and her cheeks were flushed pink. She was just tremendously keyed up.

"Yeah," I said as we waited in the vestibule for the taxi, "I hope the little guy pulls through. Does it say anything about survival rates?"

Amy had Googled "septicemia" on her iPhone and was reading keenly. "Hang on ..." She flicked the screen with her finger to get more info. "Oh my G.o.d ..." she said. "Oh G.o.d. This is not good ... Poor Phil!"

That's what her mouth said: Poor Phil! But her eyes seemed to say: Lucky me!

Eldrich

I knew Phil would get better. I never doubted it. G.o.d told me in a vision that was vivid and clear. I was given a dream of Phil, laughing in a forest-a lush, tropical forest. He was eating papaya, swallowing juicy mouthfuls of bright orange fruit and spitting out the black seeds. Orange in. Black out. Health in. Disease out. He was shirtless-lean and muscled now, with criss-crossing scars where the doctors had st.i.tched him up, where he had healed. The sun was shining in golden shafts through the canopy of trees as Phil devoured l.u.s.ty bites of papaya. Orange in. Black out. And all the time laughing and laughing. I knew he would be well.

Phil's infection happened for a reason.

I was summoned to New York for a reason.

And that reason was Xavier Raine Maddox.

Xavier Raine Maddox

@RaineMaddox