Read an Exclusive Excerpt From Tommy Dorfman's New Memoir, Maybe This Will Save Me

Vogue

23-05-2025

I was, for a time, living on 14th Street and 8th Avenue in an overfull, illegal three-bed above a brothel that I shared with two other gay men. One was from Australia. He was the tallest and had the smallest room, which was just half the living room converted into a makeshift bed area. No windows or closet. The other was an otter from New Jersey, and we used to drink together from time to time. I think they both regretted inviting me into the apartment as soon as I'd moved my stuff in. Perhaps it had something to do with the months I slept with a mattress on the floor and nothing unpacked because I couldn't get around to doing it, what with the drinking and all.
When the hour for sleep arrived around 9:00 a.m., whether alone or with a boy, I'd pull the cracked vinyl shades down over my window, shrouding the room in darkness and transforming it into a Stygian twink cave. The type of place you'd expect to find Edward Cullen getting bottomed. What sparse beams of light made it through the blinds illuminated the permanent cloud of cigarette smoke that hung heavy in the air. A diary written in Parliament Lights.
I'd roll over onto my side, stare at my nightstand, perpetually covered in a blanket of dust and cocaine residue. Resting atop it was a cityscape of empty cans of whatever shitty beer we'd picked up at the bodega downstairs. Or swiped from a bar and stuffed into the pockets of our trench coats, the condensation seeping into the fabric and creating strange little Rorschachs that the rest of the world could only interpret in one way: those bitches are addicts. But still, I needed sleep. I needed my heart to stop pounding through my fucking chest. And I'd just tell myself, quietly, usually in a fetal position, It's okay if you die, just get some sleep. It's okay if you don't wake up, just go to sleep…
Stealing those beers always reminded me of this woman Laura that I partied with in Atlanta from the ages of, like, 15 to 19. She looked like a New Jersey housewife that got elected Queen of the Fags on a bachelorette weekend in Atlanta and was never allowed to leave again. Brown, thick hair framed her chiseled face, a skeleton of a body swaddled in oversized Rag & Bone T-shirts and Helmut Lang leather leggings. Always in a blazer, with a Love bracelet and the loudest, raspiest laugh you'd ever heard. She must've been in her mid-to-late 40s. We met through her best friend, Billy, who supplied our drugs. His lot in life is still unknown to me. He wouldn't even let us inside his apartment when we'd go to pick him up. He, too, was a shell of a man—short and skinny, high-pitched voice, always ready to read you for filth.
Laura would fill the base of her Hermès Birkin with Long Island iced teas from Blake's, a glorified trailer on the edge of Piedmont Park that was my—and every other faggot in a two-hour driving range's—safe haven. We'd pile into Billy's Audi A3 and ride over to whatever warehouse afters or shithole drug den we'd been called to and finish them off.
But back to sunrises. Or, actually, one sunrise in particular: The morning of May 13th, 2013. My eyes are glossed over, squinty as the sun rises up and presents herself to all of creation. It's my 21st birthday, and I keep thinking how underwhelming and meaningless the occasion feels given that I've spent the last decade blacking out.
I'm with Peter, my boyfriend, in a taxi driving across the Williamsburg Bridge. I peer through the window, looking out at the East River. My phone is dead, my toes and fists are clenched. Peter brushes his fingers through my hair, getting stuck in my blond locks—matted and greasy, but still soft. At least, he thinks so.
The night wasn't supposed to end this way. I should have been at LaGuardia an hour ago to catch a flight to Burlington for my old prom date Jessica's graduation at UVM. But I wasn't. And now I'm here, suffering from a mild form of delirium tremens in the arms of my lover, while Jessica's probably applying the finishing touches to the winged eyeliner she always pulls off so well. My throat is raw from cocaine drip and cigarette smoke.
Numb, tired, ashamed.
I keep stretching out my chapped lips to feel their sting.