That morning I put on last night’s clothes out of deference to you, who had no choice, and so, reeking of cigarette smoke and smelling also of sweat and beer and poppers, we entered a hot bright morning in search of food. You wore jeans, I remember, and an old tight T-shirt that had once been blue; your hair was more red than I’d realized, and the sunlight brought out the freckles in your skin. What was on your feet? At the restaurant we ordered coffee and water and orange juice. We ordered eggs and potatoes, and while we waited we ate the loaf of bread they’d left us, layering each slice with a thick film of butter. When our breakfast came we ordered more coffee and more juice; the waiter filled our water glasses, brought us more bread. We mashed the scrambled eggs and hash browns together and forked them in yellow lumps onto pieces of buttered bread. We laughed as we ate, I remember, but we didn’t talk, and bits of food sprayed across the table; when our forks scraped across our empty plates we looked at each other and then ordered more: more eggs, more potatoes—omelettes, this time, and French fries—more coffee, more juice, more bread, too, and a couple of those corn muffins we saw advertised on a blackboard. The waiter attempted a joke, but something about the way we wielded our forks and knives stopped him. Perhaps he was just driven away by the farts leaking from both of us: by then, peristalsis had produced in me a tremendous urge to shit, and I knew it must have been much worse for you. The waiter brought the coffee and juice first, then the bread. We discovered a jar of strawberry jam and ate a spoonful with each bite of bread. We dunked our muffins in our coffee and when they broke apart we fished out the yellow-brown dumplings with our spoons. We blackened our omelettes with pepper and drank drafts of water to cool our throats, we swirled fries into a spiral of mustard and ketchup, and as I finished my coffee I discovered an inch of slushy sugar at the bottom of the cup that I let dribble down my throat. The waiter approached warily. Will there be anything else, boys? We looked at each other and smiled. There were bread crumbs in your goatee, green herbs stuck in your teeth. I watched you press your finger into a piece of food that had spewed from one of our mouths, then bring your finger to your tongue. We hadn’t spoken all morning except to order, and you left it up to me now. We’d gone far past the point of satiety, but each bite, each swallow, each burning burp had carried a hint of revelation, and all I could say was “More.”