After the movie, they walked down Hollywood blvd together, at arms' length apart. At eleven PM on a Thursday, the street was as close to subdued as it got. Shabby chic hipsters strolled together in small clusters on their way to nightclubs or hole-in-the-wall restaurants. Sullen teens in band t-shirts and jeans with worn out knees slouched in the doorways of porn stores and by-the-slice pizza parlors, holding out Styrofoam cups for small change. A few lingering Midwestern tourists wearing fanny packs, their skins greasy from too much sunblock, were taking pictures of the Chinese Theater. Michael kept his hands clasped behind his back, while Alex swung his arms back and forth aggressively as if he were power-walking. Michael read the names of long dead stars as they passed. Harlowe. Monroe. Dean. He stared hard at the gold names embedded in the pink marble as if he could conjure up their ghosts and command them to his bidding. Alex was drinking a smoothie, in between noisy slurps on the straw he blathered cheerfully. "So I got these pants special order. See the silvery cover? And they're Teflon-coated, so I don't have to worry about spills."

"Really?" Michael stared at a star, imagined Rosalind Russell preening and posing and saying something bitingly clever.

"Like I said, I want to be a newscaster, and I figure if I'm going to network, I should have a wardrobe that says something." Alex pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and peered down at his arms. He flexed his biceps like the he-man in the back of old comic books. "I'm too skinny, though. I need to work on bulking up. These pipe-cleaners won't impress anyone."

Michael gave Alex a little half-smile. His eyes roved over Alex's whip-lean build, his long nose, nut-brown skin and eyes so dark that it was difficult to tell where the pupils ended and the irises began. "I think you're fine the way you are."

Alex punched Michael's arm playfully. "You're a sweetie, but I got to bring my a-game if I want to make it. I don't want to end up doing the weather on Telemundo."

"You gotta start somewhere."

"Somewhere, yeah. Why not at the top?"

They arrived at the bus stop. A dowdy, middle-aged woman waited in a pool of light underneath the streetlamp. She wore a pink chiffon scarf over her iron gray hair. She rubbed her hands over and over and shivered as if she were freezing in the balmy summer evening. She smiled at the two young men. She was missing an incisor. "Come near me, strong, handsome boys and shield me from this cold wind."

Alex looked down at his shoes. Michael walked to the edge of the yellow circle of light and stood with his body at an angle. The woman smiled up at him. "You have kind eyes. With a certain lonely something there. You're a good boy. I can tell, you wouldn't know it to look at me, but I was once famous and a songwriter, too. I wrote `More Bounce to the Ounce'. You heard that one?"

Michael nodded. Alex hid his mouth behind his hand and pretended to cough.

"They stole that from me. They stole everything." Her eyes narrowed and her lower lip quivered. " I'll take your warmth."

The down on Michael's forearms stood at an end, and for a moment he felt as if he were standing in a field of snow, the neon lights seemed muted and the world went gray. A chill, gritty wind howled down the boulevard. Then he rubbed his eyes and the streetlight amber and lurid neon pink and blue returned. The air was thick with exhaust fumes and stifling from the summer heat again. Michael stared at the woman who smiled her gap-tooth smile. "Thank you, strong handsome boy. I'll tell you something." She leaned up, almost close enough to whisper and said, "Stay away from the cloisters."

The bus pulled up to the stop, its doors creaked open. Alex grabbed Michael by the wrist and pulled him towards it. "Come on, let's take this back to the car."

When they had taken a seat halfway back, Alex smirked and pointed his thumb at the woman still standing in the half-circle of light. "What a crazy old bat. "

Michael said nothing, but stared at the hunched over figure until she was lost from sight.

***

"Oh, it's you. Well, what do you want?"

"Show me how?"

"You won't find happiness this way. It uses people. Gets them between its teeth and sucks all the life out of `em just as neat as you'd suck the pips in an orange."

"I know."

"Let me ask you something, why do you keep coming back here, night after night?"

***

Michael woke up to the sound of knocking. He rolled over in bed and stared at the digital clock on the nightstand. The numbers read 2:15. It was a sticky summer night and his sheets were plastered to his body with sweat. He peeled them back and then fumbled on the ground for a pair of sweats. The knocking continued. "Coming!" He shouted. He half-ran, half-stumbled into the living room, cursing as he stubbed his toe on the curved, clawed legs of the wing chair he'd inherited. "Hold on a second!" He put one hand on the chain and the other on the deadbolt before asking, "Who's there?"

"Michael, thank God! It's Alex. Can I come in?"

Michael turned the latch, swung the door inward and unlocked the dead bolt to the wrought iron security door. Alex pulled it open wide enough to admit himself and slipped in. He squinted in the gloom. "it's dark in here."

"Sorry, I was asleep."

Alex spread his hands. "Yeah, sorry. I shouldn't have come so late. I just didn't know where to go, and I was kind of in the neighborhood and--"

"What happened?"

"Well, I met this guy off a chat room. And we were talking and he invited me over. And well, he didn't look so much like his picture. And they were smoking pot as his place, and I can't go home smelling like that `cause Gran will have a fit."

"It's okay if you crash here. I want to go to the library in the morning, but it's fine if you stay till then. Do you need anything?"

Alex pulled apart the vertical blinds and stared out for the street for a while before asking, "Do you have anything to drink?"

Michael rubbed his eyes for a moment. "Nothing alcoholic. I can make you some tea."

"It's too hot."

"I have ice." Michael went into the kitchen and pulled out a small pot, filled it halfway with water and turned the front burner on.

"Can you cook?" Alex asked.

"I do okay. I'm not ready to open a restaurant or anything, but I'm not bad." Michael steeped a tea bag in the steaming water.

"Me, I'm lousy. I can screw up ramen noodles." Alex cocked his head to one side and rubbed his chin. "You should cook for me one day, and I'll watch and see how it's done."

"Okay." Michael mixed in two spoons full of sugar and poured the hot tea into a pink plastic tumbler filled with ice. He handed the cup to Alex who took two noisy sips, then thunked the cup down on the kitchen table.

Alex rubbed his eyes. "I'm tired. Do you think--do you have anywhere I can sleep?"

"You can have my bed. I'll sleep on the couch."

"You're being too nice as it is. You sure? "Alex asked even as he headed into Michael's darkened doorway. He closed the door behind him. Michael stood in the hallway outside for a time until he heard the sound of gentle snoring. He then padded softly into the kitchen and picked up the pink tumbler and gulped it down.

***

"Love."

"Hah. That's the worst motive. No one's ever made themselves happy that way."

***

Michael came back from the little Supermercado on the corner of 79th and Central with a paper bag full of bolillos. Their warmth radiated against his arms and chest. He set them on the kitchen table. He pulled out two skillets and placed them on burners. He grabbed four eggs from the avocado green fridge, cracked them open into a bowl and whipped them with a fork. He sliced two hot links lengthwise and set them into a skillet to brown. He heard his door creak open over the sizzling of the sausage and grinned. Alex ambled over and stood at Michael's elbow and peered over his shoulder. "Whatcha doin?"

"You asked me last night if I could cook." Michael poured the eggs into the empty skillet. "I decided to make breakfast." He gestured at the sack full of bolillos. "I got those from the market down the street. They're cheap and lousy when they're cold, but they're pretty wonderful when they're just made."

Alex grabbed one of the French-style rolls and cracked it open. He smiled in child-like wonder at the trail of steam that wafted upwards from the soft white middle. "I take back everything nasty I ever said about your neighborhood. Hot fresh bread totally makes up for the crack house on the corner."

"Did you sleep okay?" Michael folded the eggs over with a spatula.

"Yeah. I mean, there was a loud bang that woke me up, I thought it was a drive-by, but it was probably just a car backfiring."

"I think the gangs all changed colors and sports teams last week. It'll take them a while to figure out who to shoot."

Alex smirked. "How do they pick?"

Michael shrugged. "I don't know. Spin a wheel?" He set down two plates of eggs and sausage on the table.

Alex laughed, then leaned forward to place his hand on top of Michael's. Their fingers laced together, the browns and tans like the curves and swirls of a sand painting. Michael looked down at his plate. Alex laughed. "I'm so much darker than you. You have blond arm hair!"

"I was blond until I was six." He smiled at Alex's look of incredulity. "I know, blond black boy. Hideous mutant freak."

Alex squeezed Michael's hand. "Thank you. For everything."

Michael leaned back in his chair and smiled.

***

"Sometimes, maybe you have to do what's right."

"Sometimes. But what's right for you?"

***

Michael lay indolently on his bed staring at the shadows from the half-open venetian blinds cast on his bedroom wall. A library book rested on a pillow by his head, open to where he'd stopped reading. A sudden, hard summer storm had blown in from the ocean and rain was beating slantwise against his window. There was no rain across the street, and a shaft of sunlight suffused Michael's room in amber-colored light. The shadows on the wall danced with the beat of the rain. He lay there with his lips slack and eyes half-lidded. His expression would have been one of dreamy languor were it not for his knowing stare. His hand twisted his yellow sheets into tiny peaks and valleys. The fine blond hairs on his forearms stood straight up. The rain sounded to him as if it were beating out a name over and over again. His vision went blurry at the edges and he cried out wordlessly. The shadows were forming shapes against the bare expanse of bedroom wall and Michael's heart beat faster, as if it were trying to keep pace with the insistent summer rain. He had a sensation of falling and clenched onto his sheets as if they were a lifeline. Not this again, he thought as the shapes in the shadows became more defined and the world about him dissolved into a bright, featureless blur. A cold, dry wind from nowhere blew hard against him and darkness enveloped him. For a moment there was nothing but the sense of falling and cold, but then the world roared with sound, heat and light.

He was in a bedroom. Three men stood over a bed with a brass headboard. Two were wearing gray hooded sweatshirts and jeans. A third wore a white Joe Boxer t-shirt and cut-offs. He was a skinny, sallow, thin-lipped blond with a gap-toothed sneer and a crew cut. He held a wrench loosely in his right hand. The other two were larger. One was a freckly redhead who had once been muscular but was now running towards fat. His thick lower lip gave him a petulant expression. The third had coarse black hairs on veiny hands, but his face was lost in the shadows beneath his hood. All three were spattered with maroon droplets. Blood, Michael thought and shuddered. He looked over their shoulders as if compelled and saw a fourth person. A naked, shivering youth tied to the bed with copper wire. His face was distorted beyond recognition. His skin was red and shiny; it seemed stretched like an overfilled rubber ball. His eyes were swollen shut. Snot, blood and tears flecked his cheeks. Blood flowed in a steady trickle from his nose and mouth. Red marks against his ribs had already begun to purple.

The skinny one in the Joe Boxer t-shirt raised his wrench over his head and brought it down hard onto the naked figure's jaw with a wet crunch. The skinny man laughed, a high, shrill sound, and muttered, "I fuckin' hate faggots."

Michael turned his head away from the brutal game, sickened and heart-weary. A trick of the light made something in a far-off corner glitter. Michael moved towards the glittering object, trying to block out the moans and the hateful laughs. It was a pair of glasses. An ugly, boxy pair of Pierre Cardin glasses bought by a silly boy in an attempt to look more serious. Alex's glasses.

Darkness swept over Michael again, and he was back in his own bedroom, tangled in his yellow sheets. A fat drop of sweat ran down his chin into the hollow of his neck. "No," he said. And then tears began to fall.

***

"I just need to be stronger."

"All power comes from hunger. Remember that."

***

Michael paced barefoot around his bedroom, his feet slipping across the scarred hardwood floors. There was no doubt about it; he had another one of his visions, the shadow-dreams that always struck with gut-wrenching ferocity. He hadn't had one in the past year and had almost dared to hope that they were behind him. The dreams always came true. And this one was unbearably ugly. He couldn't let this happen to Alex. But how could he stop it? If he told him the truth he'd only laugh, or worse, thought Michael. He didn't know when or where. He slammed his fist against the wall with sudden violence. Loose plaster from the moulding overhead rained down on him, splashing dashes and dots of white into his hair. He couldn't think of a way to stop this awful thing from becoming real. He sat on the edge of his bed and pressed a knuckle into his lower lip. He stared at the phone. He lunged at it and dialed Alex's number in a panic, hitting the buttons with his thumbs. It rang three times and went to voicemail. Michael gave a half-choked sob and waited for the beep. "Alex? It's Michael. Be careful. Just be careful, okay?"

He slammed the phone down. Stupid. Michael slumped down in the corner of his room and held his head in his hands. He shuddered once and bit his lip. "No," he said, "This can't be true. Alex..." His voice trailed off as he noticed a fleeting shape out of the side of his wall, as if something very small had just run past him. Michael raised his head. Shadows flickered through the air, pooling in a place on the wall.

A swirling circle of shadow had formed on the wall at the place where the vision had taken him earlier. It was spreading and pooling like oil, and had that same glistening blackness with glints of rainbow. Michael walked towards the wall slowly, his head cocked to the side. Gingerly, he spread his fingers and placed his palm against the dark place. He could feel the cool plaster beneath his hand, but a slow, pulsing warmth suffused his fingertips. Tendrils of blackness crawled up his arm, gently flickering. The circle of shadow deepened and widened and he could no longer feel the plaster, only the rhythmic warmth. He pressed his hand in deeper, and the eager darkness swallowed his arm up to the elbow. The throbbing now seemed to have a sound. He could feel a low rumble through his chest. More tendrils snaked out to embrace him. Flickering shadows caressed his face. The circle had spread almost over the entire surface of the wall and was rippling toward the ceiling and the floor. The rumbling sounded to Michael like, "Come". He took a deep breath and stepped forward into the pool of darkness.

***

"You're a fool."

"I know."

***

At first the dark was comforting. Michael was enveloped in the softly pulsing warmth. The darkness caressed him and conveyed him along in a direction like an ocean current. He could not tell whether he was falling or ascending, but the soft motion lulled him. He let his lips go slack and tried to take in a breath, but there was no air in this darkness. He panicked and tried to thrash around, but his motion was limited by the enfolding shadows. He screamed and heard no sound. He could feel the beat of his heart like thunder in his chest. There was a terrible moment when his burning lungs felt like they would burst and his heart beat so fiercely that he could feel throbbing through the veins in his forehead, and it felt that this suffocating blackness would crush him as gently at it had wrapped around him. But then his head pushed through a surface like the membrane on water and sudden light dazzled him. He gasped and cold, dry air filled his lungs.

He was bobbing up and down in the center of a wide, circular pool of shadows. They flickered and milled about his neck and ears but made no attempt to drag him back down. Beyond the stone rim of the pool, he could see a vast room with countless stone pillars rising up into darkness. From each pillar a torch with a dancing, smoky flame burned, illuminating the slate floor around the pillow in indistinct yellow-orange circles. He half-swam, half-walked to the rim of the pool. It was slow going, like moving through molasses, but the shadows were yielding to him and did not impede his passage. He pulled himself up and rolled onto the cold floor and lay there for a moment panting.

"Boy," a voice called out, "I thought I told you stay away from here." The voice was dry and humorless and discordant. It was the voice of a fairy tale crone. Michael looked around wearily. A slumped over figure stepped into the torchlight. She had iron-gray hair that peeked untidily from beneath a pink chiffon scarf. She had deep, worried furrows in her brow and crows' feet as fine as spider's web surrounded her eyes. The woman from the bus stop.

"I didn't know where--"

The woman shook her head. "It's no matter now. I suppose I'll bid you welcome. So, a warm welcome to nowhere. Welcome to the Shadow Hall, the Hungry Place, the Cloisters of Loneliness. What brings you here?"

Michael stared up and met the woman's keen, cold gaze then quickly looked away. "I had an awful dream. A vision, I guess. And my friend, he's going to--he's in trouble and--"

"The future is a shadow cast by the present. I could see how that brought you here. You and your kind eyes. There's something of the fool in you." The woman crossed the cold slate floor and knelt down at Michael's side. She lifted his chin with thick blunt fingers and stared into his eyes. "You've come here seeking power, then. Well this place is power, but not the kind such as you should have. Go on home and leave your friend to his fate."

"No!" Michael shook off the woman's touch. "I have to help him if I can. If there's anyway."

The woman pursed her lips. "Of course there's a way. There's always a way, but he won't thank you for it, and he won't love you for it, and you're a young thing with a wild heart and there will always be others."

Michael scrambled to his feet and stared into the shifting pool of shadows. "You don't understand."

"I understand better than you think. Your heart is full of fancy and you want to save your love from a terrible fate. It's not a fate that will kill him, but it will leave his pretty face scarred and unsuitable for newscasting."

Michael turned to glare at her.

"Of course, you can nurse him back to health and earn his gratitude, maybe even in time his love. Although it won't be the grand and sweeping love you're wanting, it might be enough."

Michael closed his eyes. "Knowing is not the same as understanding."

"You're a young fool. This place is power, yes, but the kind of power that sweeps you away and leaves a hollow shell. You use this power, boy, and you'll always be alone. More alone than you can dream of now, with your young love and fragile heart and kind eyes. No one will want to be near you again, least of all your skinny little newsboy in his Teflon-coated pants."

He wiped away a rogue tear with the back of his hand. "I don't care. If I can stop this--this thing from happening, I'll do it. I don't care what happens to me." Tears streamed down his face. "Please."

The woman sighed, "Aye. I knew you'd say that. Same as me. And no more ready than me. Come then." The woman gestured at the pool of shadows, which writhed and grew turbulent at her approach.

***

"Please."

"Come then, and I'll show you the ways. But you won't thank me for it, in the end."

***

The way back through the pool was easier. After being shown the trick of it, it was simple to shape the focus and direction of the shadows. He knew how to see now. Through the black-gloss rainbows and flickers of shadows, he could see places and people and times. There. A little yellow house on a narrow street. He could feel the pull from it. Burbling laughter and distorted voices bubbled up at him, "--`ll get that little faggot good". Yes, there. Michael parted the darkness like a veil and stood before the little yellow house. The air felt cold on his cheek. He could smell woodsmoke on the wind, but beneath that a sickly sweet smell, like compost. He walked up to the door. Balled his fist as if to knock, then stopped and spread his hand out flat. Doors were things of wood. Dead, and rotting, subject to decay, and mold and the hungry jaws of worms. The paint began to peel off the door in thin strips. This door was no more a barrier to him than dust is to the desert wind. The door crumbled softly at his approach and spread across the ground as a fine powder. He stepped over the threshold into a narrow hallway that led on to rooms with closed doors. A thin voice echoed down the hallway, "Okay. He should be here any minute. Ricky and D., you guys hide and I'll bring him back here."

Michael heard nasty giggles, and a door creaked open. A thin, sallow-looking blond stepped out into the hallway. He was wearing a Joe Boxer t-shirt. The blond craned his neck in the gloom and saw Michael standing at the far end of the hallway. "What the fuck," he cried.

Michael whispered, "all power begins with hunger," and smiled grimly at the long shadow cast by the blond who was running towards him now redfaced, fists balled up to strike. The shadows whipped about like snakes, deepened in color and took on a slippery, oily cast. They reared up and struck the blond, who fell and screamed in surprise. The shadows pulled back and struck again, this time there was a wet, meaty sound and the blond screamed in pain. Droplets of blood spattered against the wall and when the shadows reared back again, the blond was missing chunks of flesh. His two companions barreled out of the bedroom shouting, and tendrils of darkness sped towards them.

***

"What's your name?"

"Names don't matter here."

***

Michael stood over three neat heaps of bones, picked clean and white and sighed at his handiwork. Fat, glossy shadows rippled lazily over his shoes and rubbed against his legs like spoiled, contented cats. Their deaths were quick, if not easy, he told himself. They deserved worse. Still, he shuddered at the memory of how the redhead had cried out to a God who did not answer. Yellow light from outside illuminated the hallway. He heard the sound of a car pulling into the driveway. Alex. He couldn't see these bones, he wouldn't understand. Michael gestured and the shadows swam over the bones, covered them and then dissipated, leaving the hallway empty and sterile.

A car door slammed. Footsteps up the front walk. Alex stood in silhouette in the empty doorway. "Hello," he called, "Is anyone there? Steve?"

Michael walked out to meet him. Alex shielded his eyes with his hand and squinted. His eyes widened in surprise. "Michael? What are you doing here?"

"Alex. I came to save you."

Alex's face contorted. "Dude! What the fuck is wrong with you? You leave me a creepy voice message and don't answer your phone for days and then show up here? Were you following me?"

"I was here first."

"Wait, did you set up this whole thing? Is this some kind of fucked up joke? Are you fucking crazy?" Spit flecked Alex's jaw. The cords in his neck stood out in relief.

"No. I came to save you." Michael stepped forward again and stood in the moonlight.

Alex covered his mouth and muffled a cry. "No. You're a freak. Your eyes--"

"I--I did what I could for you."

Alex grimaced in fear and spread his arms defensively. He stumbled backwards, almost tripping over the threshold of the doorway. "Do me a favor and keep the hell away from me. Lose my number!"

Alex fled out of the house and into his car. An engine revved and tires squealed and Alex sped away into the night. Michael stood in the doorway and watched the car until it became a blue dot on the horizon. Heart-weary, he decided to go home. But home was no longer his little apartment.

He gestured at a wall and darkness swam pooled it. Warmth radiated from the darkness. The air here was too cold. He realized he would have to tell the woman about his failure. He stepped through the veil of shadows again and arrived in the endless hall beyond the shadowed pool. The cloisters. "Hello?" He called. But he heard only echoes. The woman with the pink chiffon scarf had gone.

***

Michael stared into the shifting pool and waited and watched. Most people had the same blank, docile sheeplike look in their eyes. They were safe, and would live their safe, comfortable lives without ever looking back at him. They flickered away and he forgot them instantly. But there, in the pool was a girl, perhaps nineteen whose eyes seemed to stare forever. She looked at the shadows as if there was something in them. She was lovely and there was a lonely fragility there. Yes. Michael parted the veil. The girl was in a library, long after dark, alone at a small table between the stacks. She was reading and did not notice that she was no longer alone. Silently, slowly Michael walked behind her and brushed her hair with the back of his hand. When she looked up, startled, he leaned close to her ear and whispered, "Stay away from the cloisters."