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Some brilliant dead white guy that Dante studied said that choice lives in the now and that even the crappiest decisions seem inevitable in replay. Choice, the guy said, is a flinch. Or simply, a loss of focus at the wrong moment, like now, when a cold touch can betray secrets well kept by a selfish a.m. erection. Even groggy from sleep and sex, Dante knows that a worn out fantasy about a dead island in a grimy city river shouldn’t distract him from his girlfriend’s hand taking his.

Still, even as he lets Nina lead him into the hallway, he cocks his head to hear the voice on the bedroom TV report that a tide of waste has closed Belle Isle, his childhood version of Fantasy Island.

“These should do it,” Nina says, indicating the stack of empty boxes blocking the hallway.

“Yeah, I saw them last night when I got in. Couldn’t miss them,” he tells her.

She eyes the stacks of unpacked books before giving him the look that he has come to recognize as charity masking disappointment. “Everything has got to be boxed by the 22^nd,” she says gently, squinting up at him to add, “that’s next Friday.”

        His bare shoulders, chest and legs have gooseflesh from Nina’s love of cuddling under summer blankets made necessary by sub-Nordic air conditioning. As usual, he’s still in his briefs while Nina, already immaculate in her lawyer suit, works to impress upon him some insight to which his distractions must have blinded him.

“A proposal to permanently close the island remains stalled but is said to be gaining momentum,” concludes the voice on the TV.

Itching to crack his neck, Dante pictures Nina’s usual shiver of disgust and makes do with a stretch. “When I was thirteen, I used to think that being able to close Belle Isle and have it just for me and my friends would be the coolest thing.”

Flashing him that indulgent little smile that makes him feel as if he’s a perp confessing a crime, she recites his fantasy in sing-song tones. “And then later you would grow up to be mayor of Motown and buy Belle Isle and rescue Detroit from the mean old white folks.”

Though he almost blurts out that, along with buying Belle Isle and being the Mayor of Detroit, he dreamed of French kissing his best friend Jimmy, he merely shrugs and says, “You can take the boy out of the city but….”