Page 54 of Angel of Thursdays

Sparrow was closed the whole first week of January, a handwritten sign in the window saying See you Jan 8! with a doodle of its namesake bird. The whole architecture of the year didn’t collapse so much as sprout annexes. There were still Thursdays, and those were still purple. But there were also Saturdays now, and a Tuesday phone call that went on half the evening because Cassiel had watched a two hour retrospective on McDonaldsland lore and needed to explain it to a captive audience.

There was a day where May finished at Lau Kee and took the bus to Clement. He walked to Linden & Pratt and Cassiel was still closing up, bent over the bench in his glasses with the loupe light on. May sat on the floor by the door and ate a bao and waited, and when Cassiel finally looked up and looked at him, the smile on his lips was unquestionable.

09:00

Gay Angel, every Thursday

The alarm was still in May’s phone for when he previously had to haul his ass out of bed to make it to Sparrow on time, but it was incidental. His body knew Thursdays now.

He had let the alarm stay even when they had nothing planned on a Thursday morning. Stopping it felt like the end of something. That wasn’t the energy he was bringing into 2025.

* * *

The first day of the new year happened to be a Wednesday. Lau Kee was closed, Auntie Tsang and Uncle Lau off to Philly for a week for reasons so unclear May had decided to assume ‘family’ for his own peace of mind.

May worked at home in the morning, which involved a lot of clicking and sighing and breaks to roll around listlessly on the couch before making instant coffee from a half-calcified jar of Nescafé and daydreaming about what a Sparrow New Year’s special would be.

Louis came over at noon, having sent him a single warning text that he didn’t read until around eleven. He had with him a bag of mandarins, a huge bottle of Kang Shifu Iced Black Tea, takeout from Great Wall, two things of boba from Bobaville, a video game, and a stack of his mail their mom had been holding.

“These are because Mama says you’re low on vitamin C,” Louis said, lobbing the bag of mandarins at May, who just caught them. He then raised the Kang Shifu. “And she said this is your favorite.”

The sweet black tea had been his favorite when he was eight because Teresa had unilaterally banned soft drinks from the house. May sighed, took both, and made space for the bottle in the fridge while Louis made his way to the TV.

“How do you still have no chairs? You’ve been here two years. Go—” His little brother’s annoying voice stopped suddenly. May didn’t have to look over his shoulder to realize it was because he’d noticed the new addition to the room. “Where the hell did you get a record player from?”

“An angel gave it to me for Christmas. For being a good person and a nice brother. Can you sit the fuck down? Couch. Floor. Pick.”

Louis picked the floor. He had brought Untitled Goose Game for the Switch, which was his Christmas gift. To himself. And because his Switch officially lived at May’s place, he had to come over.

He docked it to May’s TV and handed him the red Joy-Con. They were two geese in a quiet English village. An ideal existence.

The game was simple. You were a goose—or in this case, two geese—and you caused problems. There was a list of objectives and you completed them by stealing things, trapping people, and honking. Louis wanted to complete the objectives. May wanted to honk.

“Stop honking. We need the rake.”

“I’m distracting him.” May honked.

“You’re honking at a wall. He can’t even see you. You suck.”

May honked at the wall. Louis rolled his eyes and dug into the mapo tofu. May ate most of the green beans and inhaled the boba. After a brief intermission, they got the rake. They stole the groundskeeper’s keys. They chased a kid into a phone booth. May felt remorse for a second, then honked at him through the glass.

The afternoon was lazy and familiar, passed in a haze of sugar. Louis’s replica hypebeast hoodie was pilling at the elbows, his hair was getting long and sweeping over his eyes. He looked like a little kid again, and May felt like his big brother.

Then he kicked Louis out at six.

“Okay, go party. You’re twenty. Venture forth. Be young and dumb and full of⁠—”

“Ugh. Fuck you, I know you’re seeing your—” Louis made a vague gesture that encompassed the concept of Cassiel without specifying anything about him, because Louis had been given zero details and was basing everything on lock screen evidence and a suspicious turntable manifestation.

“Yep. Hot date,” May said cheerfully. “Hence you get out. Go tell Kevin how you feel. He talks about you. Not in words, but a brother knows.”

“I hope your hair falls out and your brain leaks out through the follicles.” He pulled on his shoes. “Tell your stock photo boyfriend I said ‘watch yourself.’”

The door closed as Louis disappeared onto the street.

May took his meds early and FaceTimed Anna. Doodoodoodoodoo. When it connected, she was in her kitchen in Sacramento, an influencer-nice kitchen, bright white everything, a nightmare of minimalism. Her husband’s big head obstructed the view of whatever was to the right of her.

Anna’s husband’s parents had named him Willie. May called him William, because grown men weren’t called Willie. The man himself wanted to be called Will. But he wasn’t a Will. He was a William.