Altimexis

The contractors we’d hired were in the process of gutting the existing family room and would soon be installing all new built-in bookshelves, a new false acoustic ceiling and hardwood flooring. Another set of contractors was installing all new electrical wiring and Ethernet cabling to support not only our home theater, but every connected device in every corner of the apartment. They were installing new Wi-Fi mesh routers, two new FiOS optical network terminals, or ONTs, and a brand-new security

“We’re meeting up with a kid and his family, a kid I know from the internet but someone I’ve never met before. He knows me, and he knows you separately, but he doesn’t know we’re together. Is that right?” Henry asked for the tenth time. “He knows we live together and that we like each other, but he doesn’t know we’re a couple yet,” I explained. “He doesn’t even know you’re here. It’ll be a surprise all around.” “I’m sure it will at that,” Henry said just as we pulled up in front of Fra

“I’d offer you something while we wait for breakfast to be delivered,” I told Max and Gideon, our new neighbors, “but Henry and I need to do some shopping—” “For clothes, obviously,” Max interrupted. “Hey, I wasn’t the one who was spying on their neighbors,” I observed. I’d gotten up that morning and decided to do some stretching exercises out on the terrace in my bikini briefs, not realizing that Max and Gideon could see us through the shrubs that separated the two halves of the terra

As you've all been enjoying the story, I've been enjoying reading your first impressions and comments. The apartment J.J. and Henry bought in Chelsea is a real apartment that was listed on a real estate site at the time I wrote these chapters. I actually live in Manhattan on the Lower East Side, so I'm quite familiar with the area. As I like to say, we live in the cheap seats, in a building that was originally built in the mid-twentieth century as one of many so-called urban renewal projects. We do have a large terrace, though, which is a rarity in an apartment worth less than a million dollars. The one described in BBB, however, is substantially larger and in a prime location. If you want a closer look, you can search for the Walker Tower in Google and Google Maps and see pictures of it, inside and out. You should have no trouble spotting the boys' terrace as well as the hedge that separates it from the one owned by the hypothetical neighbors. I'm sure I've walked by the Walker Building at least a dozen times, yet I never took notice of it before. From there, it's an easy walk to the Stonewall Inn and other famous landmarks. I can easily see J.J. and Henry making a life for themselves there, and eventually raising a family of their own. In short order, J.J. will begin to patch things up with Larry, the deputy chief of A.I. at Applazon's NYC facility, and they'll seek out space for their department together. The building that Applazon bought for their new headquarters in the Big Apple is also real. Amazon did indeed buy the iconic old Lord and Taylor department store on Fifth Avenue, from the embattled WeWorks. The building was quite innovative for Manhattan when it was built, with an underground loading dock and window displays that could be lowered into the basement and exchanged with new ones during the night. Of course now all the window displays on Fifth Avenue have been replaced with giant video displays, making the whole concept of window shopping impossible. If I wanted to shop at a place with a video display, I'd do it online. Dinner with the Walters is on the docket, as is taking in some Broadway shows, and then the boys will head off on their summer trip together, and begin a long-needed reckoning with the past. One thing I can assure you is that whenever things seem to be settling down and leading to a conclusion, a major upheaval awaits.

Very popular… with their cardiologists!

“Let me get this straight,” Kyle, one of the sales agents, said, “You’re interested in photography as a hobby, but you’ve no experience other than with your smartphone camera.” I was looking at cameras at B&H Photo while Henry was at NYU filling out the necessary paperwork to enter the Ph.D. program in mathematics. “That’s right,” I reiterated. “I’ve been learning about photography from friends who have good equipment. One of them had a Sony a7C and another had a Sony RX-something but s

The realtor we’d hired arrived promptly at 9:00. We opened the door to find a caricature. She appeared to be about sixty with hair that was dyed red but with obvious gray roots. She spoke with a thick Brooklyn accent. When I opened the door, she was taken aback as she’d obviously been expecting a young-adult couple and not teenagers. She asked, “Good morning, young man. Are your parents in?” “Good morning, Ms. Epstein, I presume,” I replied. “I’m Dr. J.J. Jeffries and this is my partner, He

“I can’t believe we’re going to New York – going to New York together.” Henry exclaimed as we waited to board our flight from Omaha to New York. We were standing together, side-by-side, waiting for our flight to be called. I wanted more than anything to hold Henry’s hand, but we were still in Omaha and while we might have gotten away with showing our affection for each other in New York, Omaha was another story. It had been three weeks since the Memorial Day weekend barbecue, and as much as

The week in Chicago had passed all too quickly, and although I’d seen and done everything I’d intended to see and do, I couldn’t help but feel I’d barely scratched the surface. The trip home was my third time driving the Tesla more than its range on a single charge – and with unusually high temperatures and humidity. I didn’t even attempt to maximize my range by driving without air conditioning. I drove home on Thursday in order to avoid the worst of the holiday traffic; I also saved paying the

Auburn was even better than I’d been expecting, and that was saying a lot. It was a real highlight of the trip. I had a wonderful time visiting with my sister Camilla in South Bend, catching up on both our lives. From there I took a short detour to the Indiana Dunes National Park right on Lake Michigan. Much to my surprise, I could actually see the Chicago skyline from there. The drive to Chicago was slow going, due to the congestion around Gary and the usual Friday afternoon traffic. I was sure

I know people who plan their entire travel around specific restaurants or to visit regions known for their food. I know people who spend hours preparing meals. That's not me. You might say I'm a virtual foodie, enjoying learning about different foods and even coming up with my own recipes, but never actually partaking of them. I guess I get a vicarious thrill from writing about food that I'll never taste. Perhaps it has something to do with having had a lot of food allergies as a kid and growing up on a very bland diet. Even now, although I love spicy food, I don't tolerate fatty foods, and get sick as a dog eating anything rich or that contains red meat. Sorry to burst your bubble if you thought I actually ate the foods I've been writing about. I've learned a lot about superconductivity since starting BBB and the problems encountered in trying to develop an electric Indy car using superconducting motors will occupy J.J. through much of the remainder of the story. One of the more interesting phenomena is something called perpetual current, which is what makes superconducting MRI machines possible. When a wire has no resistance, per Ohm's law, current can flow without any applied voltage. In an MRI machine, a continuous loop will retain a stable electrical current for months without any applied electric power, resulting in a stable magnetic field. The kicker with metal superconductors is maintaining a temperature just above absolute zero, which requires liquid helium, which is difficult to produce. When the first ceramic superconductors were discovered, it was thought to be a real game changer, yet they remain little more than a lab curiosity. Figuring out the underlying mechanism is truly a Nobel Prize waiting in the wings. There is quite a history behind auto racing and the sport really did go off the rails when Parnelli Jones raced his airplane on wheels. The ensuing war between the very rich and the rich was epic, and was not fully resolved until last year when Roger Penski himself bought the Indianapolis Motor Speedway. In the meantime, NASCAR took off and has been dominant ever since. Even with all the attempts at regulation, only millionaires can afford to race Indy cars, or Formula 1, for that matter. Anyone can afford to race in NASCAR, or at least to purchase a ticket for a seat in the grandstand. I'm not a particular fan of either, but having grown up in Indy, the politics of the sport were hard to ignore.

“This is excellent,” Carl exclaimed as he enjoyed the spread of homemade breads, bagels, muffins, other pastries and an array of lox, smoked whitefish, cheeses, sweet-potato pancakes and homemade cookies of various kinds. In addition, breakfast included homemade granola with fresh fruit and yogurt, toasted homemade multigrain bread, freshly ground and brewed cappuccino and fresh-squeezed orange juice. It was a spread comparable to some of the continental breakfasts I’d had at the top hotels in E

Branson? Are you serious? That’s a bit like choosing to see EuroDisney over the Eiffel Tower. J.J.’s a world traveler and to him, Branson represents the worst of the American tourist industry. Not that he’s been there, but there’s so much more to see of the cities and Branson is more of a destination in and of itself. Personally, I liked it a lot better in the days before Dollywood, when I was a kid seeing the Ozarks with my parents. I used to live in Rochester NY and whenever I traveled, which one does frequently when they live in Rochester, people asked me about NYC. The drive from Rochester to NYC is six hours on a good day. It isn’t a day trip. Similarly, the drive from Cincinnati to Cleveland is nearly four hours via Columbus, which itself is a worthwhile destination. J.J.’s had to draw the line somewhere and his plans already include Toledo and Detroit, as well as Michigan’s famed Upper Peninsula, but events will soon lead to a change in plans. The next chapter is a major infection point.

I’d planned a six-week extravaganza encompassing some of the preeminent Midwestern cities, starting with Kansas City and ending with Des Moines. The more I planned, however, the larger my definition of Midwest became to the point that I was planning to include parts of Arkansas and even Alabama. Clearly there had to be a limit or I’d end up spending only a day in any one place and seeing very little in the long run. I probably should have excluded everything south of the Mason-Dixon line, but te

There are actually a number of small inconsistencies between Dia de los Muertos and the original story line. The entirety of Brilliant Boy Billionaire was written first, and thanks to a bug in the GA software, I cannot correct a posted chapter until after it's published. I cannot change any of the anthology stories at all, so I'll need to go back and correct the original BBB chapters as they're published. I'm still working on the final edits to the last section of BBB, so that might be a while.

Wow, I didn't realize that NY had done away with sheltered workshops. My brother was institutionalized from the time he was five until he was fifteen in an institution in Newark, New York, and my parents put their heart and souls into raising funds that ultimately built the Al Sigl Center in Rochester, NY. We moved to Indiana when my brother was fifteen, which was how he came to reside in Muskatatuck, but it wasn't until he was finally in a group home in his mid-thirties that he got into a sheltered workshop, and had it not been for that, I doubt that he would have ever been hired by industry. Your comment reminds me of the misguided war on gifted and talented programs.

Another customer entered the bike shop followed by another, so both Greg and Billy went to work showing used bicycles, in the case of Billy, and riding gear, in the case of Greg. In the meantime, a kid came in with a bike that had obviously been damaged in a fall or an accident. Seeing the way he looked, I greeted the boy with, “Ouch, that looks like it really hurt! And you don’t look like you fared too well, either.” The boy, who was maybe fourteen or fifteen laughed at that and responded,

The fall leaves crunched under our feet as I hiked the familiar path, my grandson at my side. My late October journey brought back memories of Sunday afternoons spent hiking these very trails with my family, back when I was a kid. My older brother Glen was autistic, and my parents had done what was usual in those days, committing him to a state intuition when he was just five years old. The mere thought of it seems so cruel now, particularly with the way my brother blossomed once he was set free

When my wife died, I decided to move back to Indiana, to spend more time with my grandson. Noticing that Cliff seemed despondent, I decided that a fall hike in Clifty Falls State Park was just what he needed. Suspecting that he was gay, it turned out he was, but his affect was related to something else entirely. We learned a lot about each other and the path we took turned out to be metaphorical as well.

Which is why there’s another chapter for what amounts to an afternoon and evening visit. Of course J.J. will offer to become a silent partner in the business, but Greg will be reluctant to ask for his help. We’ll be revisiting this later.

I hesitated as I approached the door of Velocity Mile, the bike shop that had fixed my bike up during my darkest time. I’d fled from home on my bicycle but ended up shredding my tires and wheels on broken glass just south of Springfield, Illinois, the Illinois state capital. It was also the place where Abraham Lincoln got his start in politics and his final resting place. For several days, Larry and Greg Hofstetter had given me not only a roof over my head but shown me a wonderful time. Eve

The spread of food on the VIP floor was considerably nicer than what I’d expected. It certainly wasn’t like what Dave had described for the one in the hotel lobby. There was an assortment of real finger foods including shrimp cocktail, fried calamari, stuffed mushroom caps, chicken and beef yakitori and spring rolls. I could’ve easily made a meal of it and gone right to sleep, but I was in a major city with real nightlife and a cute guy as my escort. Since everyone else was wearing a suit o

I'm really touched by all of your comments. I enjoyed writing this story - every now and then, an idea really gels and the story pretty much writes itself. I have another fall story coming out for the winding path theme, that I hope you'll find equally enjoyable. Although I have never set foot in Brooklyn Tech, my next door neighbor's kid goes thee. He'll be fifteen next month - he's actually the 'boy in the closet' cited in the story, as he lives with his parents in a one-bedroom apartment in which he sleeps in a bunk bed in a closet. I also am in a monthly meetup discussion group in which one of the members is a computer science teacher at Tech. It was from him that I learned that only 1-2 students were showing up for in-person classes during the days of the hybrid model. The rest of the information was obtained from the school website, which has a wealth of information. I even looked up curricula before selecting European History as a valid sophomore-level course. The fact that the building is surrounded by scaffolding is evident from Google Maps' Street View, and I learned about what was being done from reading the construction sign in Street View. It's amazing how much one can learn from the comfort of their own home these days. As an interesting aside, my longtime editor, David of Hope, questioned how a 2800 sq ft house could fit on a 1000 sq ft lot. The house really does exist and and I found it on one of the real estate listing sites, complete with floor plans. It looks like a really cool house, but it's well beyond my budget. I'd like to say I have the kind of budget Jake and Zach and their parents have in the story, but a bus driver in NYC, working a lot of overtime, can make more money that a lot of physicians do for the same number of hours. It's all relative. I've been to the Stonewall monument many times and so I didn't need to do much research for that. I used to walk there and back - it's only about 2.5 miles from our apartment on the Lower East Side, but I'll need new hips before I can do it again. It doesn't look like much, but you can feel the history. BTW, if you're ever in Manchester in the U.K. you owe it to yourself to visit the Alan Touring Memorial. He had such a brilliant mind - the founder of modern computer science and the man who cracked the German Enigma code, helping to win WWII, yet he was treated horribly because of his sexuality. Like so many who've came before, he did not set out to become a gay icon - he just wanted to live his life the way it was meant to be lived.

Zach thought he was fooling everyone and was only out to Jake, his kid brother. Then on his 15th birthday, his dad gave him a rainbow pendant inscribed with the Hebrew word ‘Chai’, which means ‘Life’. His dad had had it made to give to his best friend, Cliff, who had AIDS, but never got the chance. Zach promised to wear it with pride, but hid it under his shirt, forgetting he had to undress for gym, a class he shared with Tanner, his secret crush.

The bell rang and another school day was over. You’d think there was a fire, the way kids rushed out of the classroom, yet they congregated in the hallway in groups, making it impossible to get anywhere very fast. Knowing there’d be a wait at the elevator, I took my time exiting my European History class. Waiting until everyone else had left, I grabbed my bookbag and as I made my way toward the exit, the teacher called out to me, “Happy birthday, Zach.” Stopping in my tracks, I responded,