Because

by Joshua Mensch

  to stop her eyes from

  seeing me staring at her breasts;

  because I couldn’t

  stop staring at her breasts

  and she finally

  called me out on it, but in the

  most gentle way,

  telling me not to be ashamed,

  it’s ok to watch,

  and later, it’s ok to touch;

  because Don suddenly

  can’t stand any trysts that might

  make me a man,

  so we pack up and go to San

  Cristóbal a day early;

  because all I want is to march

  insects between her

  breasts and squeeze her nipples

  till milk comes

  pouring out (or so I imagine it);

  because I get bitchy

  and kick J. out of my bed

  that night, telling Don

  I’m not sharing anymore;

  because Don thinks he can

  calm me with his mouth;

  because I push him

  away at first but finally give in;

  because the woman’s

  skin is soft and smells nice

  and Don smells of

  armpit, crotch, and unwashed

  scalp, like fish guts;

  because the tickle of his beard

  makes it take forever

  and by the end of it his mouth

  is in pain (good, I think)

  because J., whose mouth is soft,

  gets tired quicker

  than I can come; because I can’t

  come anymore

  with my hand or anyone else’s;

  because for some reason

  my body and my imagination

  won’t work together,

  all I see are hands and mouths

  and a body I don’t want;

  San Cristóbal, 1993 – Spring

  Because the room is a bathroom

  in an old colonial hotel

  with tiny tiles arranged in a drunk

  mosaic, varying shades

  of blue with no discernible pattern;

  because my fever has

  not yet reached its pitch and my

  delirium is merely

  building; because Don thinks

  I can ride it out,

  and doesn’t call a doctor until

  the third night;

  because I am hallucinating —

  blocks of time

  come at me like massive, three-

  dimensional cubes,

  one per flick of the radio clock,

  till sunlight breaks

  through the frosted glass

  and Don wakes up

  and lifts me off the floor;

  because I ordered

  the hamburger at the “western”

  café next to the old

  colonial hotel; because

  the burger came with

  crisp, fresh lettuce, freshly cut

  onions and a tomato

  still beaded with the water

  it had been rinsed in;

  because the water, drunk by half

  a million people a day,

  is not safe to drink unless you

  grew up with it;

  because at fourteen I am totally

  out of my element,

  and I say horrible things to Don

  whenever he crosses me,

  which is almost always;

  because I imagine

  the horrible things that might

  happen to him

  and think of ways to make them

  happen; because I wake

  in a fever to find Don’s wrist

  flailing at my hips;

  because Don is drenched in sweat

  and smells like a man

  who doesn’t know how to bathe;

  because the hard knocking

  of his hand against my pelvis

  shakes me awake,

  and I push him away so violently

  he hits his head on the

  bed frame and comes back bleeding

  from his scalp; because

  it feels good, almost victorious,

  to have hurt him so badly;

  Chiapas, 1993 – Spring

  Because the room is an Aztec

  panic room where

  sacrificed children were bound

  with rope and had

  their hearts cut out then burned

  in cups of flames,

  Temple of Doom style;

  because I won’t talk

  to him, won’t talk to anyone now

  and he declares he’s

  had enough, says, I’m sick

  of this shit and I give up;

  because I say, give up what?

  then hate him

  and shut him out even more;

  because he feels

  wronged, says,

  How many other

  teenagers have someone who

  will suck their cock

  on command?

  and it shocks me,

  he has never referred to it

  so coarsely before,

  not a beautiful organ, or

  a part of your body

  but a cock; because everything

  that was once forbidden

  is now commonplace, like

  the legs of a piano,

  bare as a mirror after a death;

  because he asked

  me once, Why is any of this

  taboo?; because when

  we get back to the hotel I am

  no longer a nice young

  man but a mean kid and it’s true,

  I don’t really care

  about Don, or the other boys,

  because we’re all

  just trying to survive each other

  any way we can;

  Topeka, 1993 – Summer

  Because the room is his old room

  in the house where he

  grew up; because it contains

  the wreckage of his younger

  self, boxes filled with pictures,

  graded papers, report cards,

  passport photos in which only

  his mouth is recognizable;

  because his mother insists his

  father was a gentle man;

  because Don insists his father

  was not, so the truth

  of who his father was and what

  he may have done

  is rather obscured;

  because it is summer again

  and I just want to be outside

  with the others,

  I don’t care if a storm is coming;

  because he insists

  I stay with him at his mother’s

  and not at his sister’s

  like everyone else;

  because I am older now,

  and angry enough to kill him;

  because his niece

  does things to the others

  I’ve only heard about

  and offers to do them to me, too,

  but Don won’t let me

  spend the night at her house;

  because I try to make it

  over there on my own and get

  caught in a storm

  so terrible it makes the news,

  and when Don finally

  finds me hiding beneath a tree

  he puts his arm

  around me, takes my bike

  and loads it onto the rack

  and puts a towel on my neck;

  because I just wanted

  to get off, with anyone, it hardly

  mattered who; because,

  for once, he offers me money,

  and so I finally cave,

  fuck him

  the way he wants me to;

  Santa Fe, 1993 – Summer

  Because the room is the deck

  of a house belonging

  to Don’s old friends w
ho are also

  my parents’ old friends,

  who love him and won’t believe

  the charges that will

  be leveled against him, who will

  write letters on his behalf

  saying Don truly loves children;

  because Don babysat

  their own children back when

  all of us lived here

  in this perpetual amber light

  under which everything

  is beautiful; because Don is still

  a hero to everyone;

  because he is still considered sane

  and hasn’t lost

  his shit yet, though his face,

  if you look closely,

  betrays the strain; because he still

  bothers to be charming,

  to be the good old Don who might

  not have the academic

  acuity of his friends, but whose

  gift for friendship they

  can only marvel at — how easily

  troubled boys take to him,

  how quickly they mature

  under his attention,

  how confident they are, how

  authoritative they become

  in matters of the body and the mind;

  because it’s dinnertime —

  tonight we will eat burritos

  with red and green

  chile and afterwards sleep

  under the stars;

  because I am determined

  to sleep alone tonight,

  but Don insists I sleep next to him;

  because to protest

  is to call attention to myself;

  because I can tell

  he is trying desperately

  to keep his hands off

  the others; because he is nearing

  the end of his ability

  to maintain his fiction;

  because I understand,

  I am the important one,

  the only one;

  Forest Glen, 1993 – Winter

  Because the room is the entire

  second floor of the cabin

  where everyone sleeps together

  and downstairs is the place

  where everyone eats and it is

  the most normal place

  in the world until you visit,

  already fifteen and

  not really surprised that Don

  can’t keep it together

  anymore; because everything

  is unbelievably

  fucked up now, he isn’t even

  trying to hide it — one kid,

  a husky, powerful twelve-year-old,

  is so giddy he pulls

  out his willy at the table,

  and later, complaints

  spill out over the talking feather —

  in this way, they

  appeal to me for help; because

  I am now the oldest,

  the one who can say fuck you

  to Don, so can you please

  tell him to stop?;

  because I take him

  down to the river for a walk,

  just the two of us

  with a flashlight, and ask him

  what the fuck

  he is doing, don’t you know

  what you are doing

  will get you into trouble?;

  because he says I know,

  I know and sounds sad

  the way a man being

  reprimanded for trying to help

  those less fortunate

  than himself sounds sad;

  because he knows

  what’s coming, what’s always

  been coming — it is

  just a matter of time before it

  comes and takes

  all that he has built away;

  1994

  Vancouver, 1994 – Summer

  Because the room is a campsite

  near Vancouver, BC,

  where you meet D. for the first time;

  because he’s the first

  sane person you’ve met all summer;

  because he is a genuinely

  nice person, a desert child

  from Southern

  California, and you love how

  blown away he is by

  the sight of trees beside blue water,

  the Northern Pacific

  pushing into the coast, the cool inlets

  peppered with green

  islands, bristling with pine trees

  as tall as buildings;

  because D. is completely non-toxic,

  pure in his happiness

  to be here, to spend a year

  in Cape Breton with Don

  and the other students we plan

  to pick up on the way

  back to Nova Scotia; because he saw

  Don’s ad in a home-

  schooling magazine and asked

  his mother if he could go;

  because all he’d wanted

  for years was to go back

  to Indiana, the most beautiful place

  he’d ever seen, because

  of the trees; because I’ve finally made

  a friend, and I can’t wait

  to show him the best spots in the

  woods near Don’s place;

  because we promise each other

  we’re totally gonna

  hang out this year, and in my mind

  I’m already convincing

  my mother to drive me to the island

  more often, once a

  month at least; because an hour

  after we meet we’re

  already planning to build a fort,

  and two days later,

  after a fight breaks out, we ditch

  the idiots and follow

  the train tracks until a train

  comes, about a mile

  from where we’ve pitched our tents,

  and dare each other

  to stand close enough to feel

  the train’s vacuum

  as it whips past us, opening

  our arms to its tremendous

  creaking power, screaming

  until the last car

  clatters past us;

  J.H. Gillis, 1994 – Fall

  Because the room is an airless

  classroom in a school

  with no windows where a voice

  calls your name over

  the PA so everyone assumes

  you’re in trouble;

  because it is French class, fifth

  period, and it’s your

  mother on the phone, wanting

  to know if you’ve heard

  from Don, but not telling you

  why she wants to know,

  telling you I’ll tell you later

  and I just need to know

  where Don might go —

  though why would you?

  Don doesn’t call you, you can’t

  remember a single

  occasion on which either of you

  talked by phone;

  because you knew him better

  than anyone, she says;

  because the truth is clear even if

  the logistics aren’t,

  it’s so obvious what happened:

  somebody held on

  to the feather, kept talking;

  Sydney, 1994 – Fall

  Because the room is a Motel 6

  where three boys

  are waiting for Don to finish

  his meeting or was it

  his dental appointment?; because

  the story keeps changing

  every hour that he calls to keep

  them calm and patient

  and make them wait without

  wandering — just a few more

  hours he tells them, things are

  a little more complicated

  than I thought; because the boys

  get restless and one of

&
nbsp; them is old enough to be

  suspicious, something

  is wrong he says, something isn’t

  right, so he calls

  the desk manager, who calls

  the police, who want

  to file a missing person report;

  because a day has passed

  into night and night into

  morning and Don has still

  not returned, has stopped

  calling even; because

  the only number the oldest boy

  knows to call is mine,

  so the police reach my mother,

  who calls me at school,

  wanting to know where Don is

  and where he might

  have gone; because there is no

  chain of custody —

  all three boys are foreign citizens

  and must be returned

  immediately to their countries

  of origin — and my mother,

  being a responsible woman,

  a parent of three,

  drives three and a half hours

  northeast to Sydney,

  at the lung tip of Cape Breton

  Island, to fetch the boys

  while the RCMP contact

  Immigration who liaise

  with New Mexico State Police

  and California State

  Police and the U.S. Embassy

  in Saudi Arabia;

  because plane tickets need

  to be arranged and

  one of the parents doesn’t have

  any money; because

  the whole thing takes about

  a week, maybe longer,

  so the two older boys and I

  drink stolen bitters

  on my bedroom floor while

  the rules of adult

  uncertainty roll forward;

  J.H. Gillis, 1994 – Fall

  Because the room is the men’s

  room just outside

  the teachers’ lounge which has

  the cleanest seats

  and I need to think about

  what’s clearly going

  to happen next; because all eyes

  will turn to me, the one

  who knew him best, and there

  will be no denying

  anything, unless . . . ; because

  my mind has been

  trained to make exceptions, nothing

  is ever absolutely true;

  because human beings apply

  their aberrations

  unwittingly, inconsistently,

  judiciously; because

  I can always say it didn’t happen

  to me and who could

  prove it did?; because I’ll say

  I was the exception,

  the one whose trust couldn’t be

  violated — or rather,

  better, it was my father whose

  trust even Don

  wouldn’t violate; because that

  will appeal

  to my father’s vanity;

  because my mother

  will blame herself in parallel

  to everyone else;

  because her blame will be

  obvious, will be a truth

  impossible-not-to-accept;

  because I know

  one day I’ll have to come clean,

  but not yet;

  North Grant, 1994 – Fall