Bripster

Peter does not have his own room in New York so instead we keep a blue, blow-up mattress in the back of the closet.

I usually inflate the mattress on Thursdays, the evening before he arrives.

I make-up his bed with a comforter and two pillows taken from my own, adding a few goodies for him to find when he arrives.

A fresh tube of hair gel;

A "Last Kids on Earth" book;

Stick of purple glitter glue;

Sour Cream Pringles.

The items are not important but fulfill an unspoken agreement that we’re thinking of each other even when we cannot speak.

Once in the City, Pete usually heads to bed sometime between 8 and 9 PM putting on one of my gym shirts after brushing his teeth.

The mattress, fully inflated on the floor, occupies the space between my own bed and the two north facing windows with Manhattan outside.

In the morning, I usually wake before Peter and write for an hour while he sleeps, his breath still deep.

Around 7AM, I hear bare feet slap on the wood floors followed by a long piss and the toilet flushing.

“Morning Papa, what you writing about?”

“Morning. Just dreams,”

“Oh, what did you dream about.”

“I dreamed a turtle pulled me out to sea.”

“What do you think it means?”

“Not sure. I’m hoping the turtle is taking me someplace new and not going to leave me in the middle of the ocean.”

He says he does not dream when he is in Manhattan.

We have an agreement, his bed is not to be put away until after we have driven him home to Connecticut; the mattress fully inflated... made up like he was here for another night.

And then on a Sunday sometime around 10pm in an awfully quiet apartment, I put the pillows back on my own bed, set the mattress pump in reverse and suck the air out.

Then finally, the mattress compressed back in its bag, I return Peter's bed to the back of my closet for another two weeks.