Idlewild

by James Frankie Thomas

Soon, though, Fay gave me more to work with. We had freshman English together, and during class discussion, she was always bringing up gay shit. Like, always. We read The Iliad, and she wouldn’t shut up about how Achilles and Patroclus were boyfriends. We read The Great Gatsby, and she physically thrashed and squealed in front of everybody when we got to that weird party scene where Nick Carraway ends up in bed with some dude in his underwear. We read the freaking Bible, and I resigned myself to a dry spell for gay shit—but I hadn’t counted on David and Jonathan in the Books of Samuel.