Project Tokyo.

“Can I get a drag?” he asked. I gave him my smoke and watched him suck: high cheekbones, full lips, wide open eyes.

He looked down at his phone and started playing a video. It was his Instagram. “WB11. Model, actor, but more a performer than anything,” he said.

I told him that I was a talent manager, but in truth, I was really a failed actor who came from Boston 20 years ago, never getting hired, paid or laid.

“Do you know Matan Sharon?” I asked him. That was my highest performing client.

“Is she somebody big?” he asked.

“Matan is a man. Yes. He’s doing well. He’s on CBS’s The Big Noodle,” I said.

He took another drag, stood up and thanked me again. I never thought I would see him again.

Then it was late October- dried leaves, paper goblins taped to windows, an extra blanket at night.

Alone, after a Woody Allen movie at the Arclight, I walked into the lobby and saw WB11.

His shiny black hair fell in waves on the back of his head. He carried himself in cocky ease, his long eyelashes slightly effeminizing, his broad shoulders and muscled arms disarmingly manly. He smelled like lime and tobacco.

“WB11! How ya doin?” I asked as if he were my best friend. I patted him the on the back, reminded him of the shared joint, congratulated him on Instagram, invited him to get coffee.

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Project Tokyo. | Andy Hurvitz: Short Stories.

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One of my favorite authors on the Web: Andy Hurvitz makes the Dream Factory palpably real in his short story, “Project Tokyo”. If you read only one thing this weekend, read this, prose that gets right to the heart.