Illustration by Sal Scheibe

They move in on the first day of August when the air feels like a panting dog’s breath. From our third-floor balcony, I watch the pickup truck pull up with a cat-shredded couch sticking up out of it like the half-sunk Titanic. Five of them get out. There are three guys who spill out of the front seat and then two who emerge like a surprise from the back of the truck. Four out of five wear baseball caps and three out of those four face the bills of their caps forward. They all wear shorts. One wears Birkenstock sandals. One wears the kind of shoes you wear to the pool. The other three wear sneakers. The one who doesn’t wear a hat has lots of curly hair and a shirt that says Varsity Blues. As far as I can tell they are all very tall. Over six foot. Taller than me or my grandpa. Taller than my best friend Savitha by a landslide. In fairness that’s not hard cause she’s 4’11”.

I’m not going to lie, I watch these guys for a while with something like awe. They lift huge boxes out of the truck as if they’re light as pillows. I can hear them talk to each other. I hear, “Dude, grab the other end of this.” I hear, “Toss me the vape.” I hear, “Dunny doesn’t have what it takes.” I see: one tattoo of a Kraken across a bicep. I see: two beaded bracelets adorning a wrist. I see: one pack of Doublemint gum peeking out of a back pocket. They do three loads in total with the truck and on the last load they bring out a cat carrier and a two-four of beer. Their dining room table is set out on the front lawn and so are a lot of mismatched chairs including a La-Z-Boy recliner. When my grandpa finally comes out from his nap, he stands beside me to peer out the window, and when he sees the whole scene across the street he says “Oh dear” and rubs his bald head like it’s a lucky penny. He says, “What do you think Lo, does this spell trouble?”

“I think it spells f-r-a-t space h-o-u-s-e,” I say. “Doesn’t look good, Gramps.”

I call him “Gramps” with a bit of irony in my voice because really, he’s just Grandpa. In June, at the end of Grade 11, I asked him to stop calling me Lauren and start calling me Lo. He made it a bit of a joke at first and started singing the song about having friends in low places but when I didn’t smile or anything he stopped and we looked at each other in silence for what felt like a long time and then he nodded his head and he said, “You got it, kid.” That night when I went to bed there was a surprise on my pillow. It was a bolo tie from his collection and a note with it that said in his shaky Goosebumps handwriting, “for Low.” He actually spelled it L-O-W.

I won’t lie, I cried pretty hard. Grandpa can be cool like that. Partially it’s cause he’s seen some shit. I won’t get into it but life hasn’t been easy street for him. The bullseye of the problem being my dead-beat dad, or, if you look at it from the other direction, Grandpa’s kid. He’s not in our lives anymore and that’s a good thing. Because my dad had me when he was really young and Grandpa had him when he was even younger, Grandpa isn’t even really regular grandparent-aged. He’s 53. Most people just take him to be my dad when we’re out in public and we don’t ever really correct them. Why would we? One time a waitress caught me calling him Grandpa and made a face like the scream painting and said to me, “You mean to tell me that this Woody Harrelson lookalike beside you is your grandfather?” She mimed fanning her face and I wanted to slink under the table. Plus, a girl at school named Siobhan who people say is a sex addict met Grandpa at orchestra drop-off and told me he was a GILF.

Speaking of fucking though, it’s something I’d like to do. Preferably sooner rather than later. I turned 18 two months ago and am eager to smash this V-card into shards. Not that it matters because everyone is on their own timeline, obviously. But for Savitha it already happened. Her first girlfriend was in Grade 9 and they’re still in love in love so a guy can’t help but feel behind. Especially because I got held back a year in Grade 5 so I’m already older than everyone I know.

I tell Grandpa a lot but there are still secrets he’ll never know. Some of them I can’t say out loud but this one I will spill: I downloaded Grindr. Technically you’re supposed to be 18 but I got it four months ago, when I was still 17. They make it easy as pie to lie about your birthday and then voilà, there you are being bombarded by all the things they tell you you’re going to be bombarded by. Another secret? I like it. I have no photos and a different name and I feel like the Wizard of Oz protected behind my curtain while the strange men flock to me. I know I’m supposed to hate it, and trust me. I get it. The transphobia, the fetishizing of teenagers, the racism. Don’t get me wrong, sometimes there’s a feeling in my body like I just demolished an entire club-size bag of party mix. But mostly, I feel like I have an electric current running from the crown of my head to the soles of my feet and nothing can stop it because it belongs to me and me alone. Lately though, it’s like the electricity conductor of my own body isn’t enough. I want more.

This is why, tonight, after Grandpa’s had his nightly double bourbon on the rocks no more no less and hit the hay, I’m back on the balcony, sweating, looking down onto the lawn across the street. They’re still out there. All five of them plus two girls and another guy. The scene is like an inside room is set up outside on the lawn. It reminds me of a guy I watch on YouTube who makes really detailed miniatures. I imagine him painting their tiny baseball caps and beers. The dining room table is now covered in half-moon and full-moon marks from the humid bottles and there’s an overflowing ashtray in the middle. A Bluetooth speaker is churning out generic-sounding beats. There’s two people stretched out in the recliner.

I open the app and wait for the grid to load. I’ve got my eye on Doublemint. He’s laughing with the others but set a little apart, the cherry of a cigarette in one hand, the other slowly but surely peeling the label off his bottle. Sure enough, 100 metres away, there’s a torso that could belong to him. I send my opening message and wait for his phone to buzz, for him to feel it in his pocket behind the pack of gum. I wait for him to clumsily pull it out and read it, then look around, slowly, in all directions—as if orienting himself to life on Earth.

CLARK BONDY is a writer based in Toronto. Their stories have previously appeared in PRISM international, The Journey Prize anthology, and Ireland’s The Moth Magazine.

SAL SCHEIBE is an illustrator based in Toronto who is inspired by community, social change, and city life. She creates colourful, character-driven illustrations that blend humour and emotion to capture everyday moments. Her favourite themes include people and human connection, current events, and lifestyle stories. When she's not drawing, you’ll find her reading, going to music shows and making winter soup.