The Painting of Porcupine City: A Novel

by Monopoli, Ben

  But some people came. Babette, from work, was the first. She held her purse at her belly and waited in line, stopping beside Cara and spending a moment there—older people who’d done this before seemed to have a routine—then making her way down the receiving line. She spotted me and came to give me a hug.

  “Such a pretty girl,” she said, shaking her head. “Such a shame. Such a shame. But the baby is OK?”

  “The baby’s fine.”

  She nodded.

  “It was really nice of you to come,” I said.

  She put her hands on my cheeks and squeezed my face between her palms. She smelled of spearmint. “How are you doing, sweetie?”

  “Fine,” I said, and then: “Horrible.”

  She smiled and cleared her voice. “I don’t have any say-so, of course, but you just take as much time as you need, and I’ll do what I can at work.”

  “They’ve been fine. They gave me the week.”

  “Good.”

  She left a minute later and I resumed watching the door.

  I missed him come in, but when I looked up Alex was in the receiving line talking to Jamar. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder—Jimmy Perino was standing beside me. He was wearing the same shirt and khakis I had taken him out of four days earlier. Four days? I stood up and he gave me a hug, and I hated myself for wanting to press closer and feel him all against me one more time.

  “I came right to the back,” he said. “I don’t really do—death.”

  “That’s OK.”

  “I don’t like to think about it.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So,” he said, finally, “I’m real sorry.”

  “Thank you. Thank you for coming.”

  “No problem.” He looked around. “The flowers are nice. Hey, I haven’t seen Mr. Brazil around here anywhere. Are you guys still—?”

  “He went to visit his family.”

  “And left you?” Within a chuckle he disguised the word asshole.

  “He didn’t know. About her.”

  “Double asshole,” he said, with no disguise this time. “So how’d she die?”

  “Childbirth.”

  “Does that still happen?”

  I wanted to say, Well she’s in a fucking box so apparently it does, but instead I just said, “I guess.”

  “She passed away on Valentine’s?”

  “Early the day after.”

  “Oh,” Jimmy said. “After our...?”

  “Yeah.”

  “At least something good happened that day, though, right?” He nudged my arm. “Was that why you snuck off? I woke up hoping for another round but you were gone.”

  “I guess. It was early. So.” I saw Mike come through the door, look around uncomfortably and slink into line. He was wearing a tie.

  “That reminds me,” Jimmy said, “I think you have one of my socks.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Sorry.”

  He went on, grinning, “I know this really isn’t the right place to say this—”

  “Then don’t fucking say it. Excuse me.”

  I pushed forward the chair in front of me and slipped out of my row. Walking down the aisle and against the flow of the receiving line, I squeezed Alex’s arm when I passed him on my way to the door. Mike had let some of Cara’s cousins cut in front of him and he was farther away from the casket now than when he’d started. His face was white and I walked into him and hugged him, bumping him backward into a piano.

  “Fletcher,” he said, “I don’t know if I can look—”

  “You don’t have to. Please, will you get me out of here?”

  They counted fourteen helicopters

  and then they went back to Tiago’s apartment. It had pale green walls, small windows, and a mattress on the floor. They did sleep together that night, Mateo and Tiago—and it wasn’t the fling I’d like to imagine it was. It was the sex of old boyfriends falling back into a comfortable habit made of all the best things. It was, I think, sex fueled by two of my favorite words: razbliuto, the sentimental feeling you have for someone you once loved but don’t anymore, and saudade, a deep longing for the return of something lost. One word for each boy.

  As the sun came up Mateo idly traced with a painted finger the perimeter of the plug in Tiago’s left earlobe. He stared up at a twist of bare wires sticking out of the ceiling plaster, where a light fixture once existed. The previous tenant of Tiago’s little apartment must have taken it with him when he left.

  «I have to go to work,» Tiago said finally, looking at his phone—it was one of the fancy ones—before dropping it into the folds of the sheet. «Your cousin’s waiting for me.»

  «I know.»

  Tiago got up and kicked his long caramel legs back into his underwear. He wore thin black leather bands on both wrists and one around one ankle—the missing one was the one that had long been on Mateo’s. He pulled on a t-shirt with a rip under one armpit.

  After flinging a purple towel over his shoulder he left the apartment. The towel was wet when he came back a few minutes later. Mateo asked where he’d gone.

  «My showerhead sparks like a motherfucker so this guy down the hall lets me use his.» He spread the towel over the back of a folding chair to dry, then took his yellow work t-shirt off the arm of the same chair, pulled it on. «You’ll have to get moving. Or I could just give you my key?»

  «That’s OK.»

  «We should do this again, though.»

  «I’m not in SP for long,» Mateo said, sitting up.

  Tiago handed Mateo his shorts and sat down on the mattress. His bare knees came up high in front of him. «But we’ll do this again.» He started to get up and then looked back at Mateo. «You know, we both know Vinicius. And we know how he is. I don’t know exactly what he’s told you, but I’m guessing he’s painted you a picture of me where I’ve just spent my life crying over Mateo Vinicius Armstrong Amaral. That I’d slash my wrists and bleed all over SP if that’s what it took to get you back in my life. We both know Vinicius. So I hope you know all that’s not true. But I never really stopped loving you. OK? I know you’re not home long enough for me to waste any time acting like I don’t. It’s exhausting being nasty and so much easier to admit to feeling sad. So I love you. And I think last night was pretty great, the two of us. I’ve hoped for it for a long time. Since the last time. You know who I am. I’m your Tiaginho. I’m not going to slit my wrists. I get by; it’s what I do. So listen: It’s not about me when I say I don’t know what the fuck you’re doing up there. Why you keep going back there. What you have there that’s so great. In my guts I know someday you’re going to be up there and suddenly realize that everything that makes you you is here in SP. It’d be a lot easier if you would just realize it now. If there’s any way I can get you to stay a little longer— If there’s anything I can give you that would make you want to stay here where you belong, I hope you’ll let me know.»

  Mateo looked at Tiago’s crooked white teeth and the beads of water that dotted his throat. Then his green eyes met Tiago’s dark brown ones. He crawled across the mattress and sat on the edge. «You always did give a good speech,» he said.

  «Is that all you have to say?»

  He pressed his chin against Tiago’s shoulder. «Remember the night we painted at your heaven spot? All that rope and all that patience. Never saw anyone happier than you were when I pulled you back up with your empty can. What I want is a place that makes me that happy. The craziest, awesomest place to write, ever. I’m looking for my heaven spot. Know any?»

  Tiago frowned and said, «I’ll see what I can do.» He didn’t say what he was really thinking: that the reason he’d been so happy that night wasn’t because he’d just sprayed paint on a building. It’d been because the person holding him up, holding his life in his hands, was Mateo. «Now I need to go,» Tiago said. «Vini’s waiting.»

  Outside Tiago’s building Vinicius

  was standing near the busy street watching a vendor selling kitchen knives from a push-cart. Ther
e were only two or three others observing the demonstration but the salesman was wearing a tiny microphone attached to a crackling speaker. First he cut paper into thin strips, and by the time he’d gone through various vegetables and graduated to slicing a pane of glass as though it were cheese, Vinicius was gawking at Mateo as he and Tiago emerged from the building.

  “Oi, primo,” Mateo said.

  «Didn’t expect to see you here together,» Vinicius said. «You guys look like you didn’t sleep much. Doing some smooching?»

  «We were hanging out,» Mateo said. «You didn’t notice the bitch pad was empty last night?»

  «I was at Aline’s.» He grinned.

  Tiago said, «Dedinhos, don’t you recognize his famous shirt? Always good for a second day, he says. Let’s go, blondie, people need new phones.»

  Tiago tossed his keys in the air and caught them before Vini could. He put his arm around Vini’s shoulders and shot a smile back at Mateo as they walked down the street toward Tiago’s armored car. Mateo made his way back to Rua Giacomo and crawled into the hammock on his back patio.

  They slept together three times,

  according to Tiago. The next night after this, and the night before Mateo left. And perhaps one other time that Tiago wanted to keep for himself.

  Jamar called me the day

  after Cara’s funeral and thanked me for going. He sounded stressed but told me he was doing OK. I wondered if he really was. I wondered how much time would have to pass before I could really be sure. When I could decide that he was not only getting through the day but getting through his life. Weeks? Months? Years?

  “How’s the baby?” I said, gritting my teeth to say it. I wanted to be the first to mention him, though. I’d been working hard on thinking of him as a baby and not as the monster who killed Cara.

  “Caleb’s OK,” Jamar said. “He sleeps a lot. I’ve been feeding him with the bottle. My mother taught me how to change his diapers. He doesn’t cry as much as I expected. I should’ve learned all this stuff earlier. I guess I figured Cara would just know, or something, and she’d teach me what to do.” He paused. “He misses his mom.”

  “I miss his mom too.” I took a deep breath and blinked fast.

  “Have you been staying at the apartment? I hope Robbie and my dad didn’t leave too much of a mess. Thanks for letting them in, by the way.”

  “It’s fine. Don’t worry about it. Yeah, I’ve been staying here.”

  “I wondered if you would’ve been staying at Mateo’s.”

  “He and I aren’t really—involved anymore.”

  “Oh. I’m sorry, Bradford. I wondered, when I didn’t see him at the funeral.”

  “He’s in Brazil. I talked to his landlady.”

  “Oh. Brazil?” There was a mechanical, uninterested quality to it I would’ve resented under other circumstances, but I knew Jamar had bigger things to worry about than my failed relationships.

  “So do you think you’ll be coming back here?” I said. “I mean like ever? Will you live here at the apartment again?”

  “I hope so. I want to. I want to come back soon, actually.”

  “Really?”

  “I don’t want you to have to move out. Or replace me.”

  “I could swing the rent for a few months by myself. If you need time.”

  “No. My parents have been awesome, but— If I stay too long I’ll never leave. I want to leave before I get into a routine here. Or get too dependent. Does that make sense? And I want to be at Cara’s house. I want Caleb to be around her things. Is that morbid?”

  “No. It’ll be good to have you back.”

  “Do you mean that?”

  “Jamar, it’s so quiet here.”

  Mateo got up and went

  to the living room to poke his finger into the birdcage and found the little food tray that clipped to the inside bars empty. There must be seed around here, he thought, and he found it in the second drawer of the bureau on which the television stood. He unlatched the cage door, careful to block it with this other hand to keep the birds from flying out, and shook some tiny yellow seeds into the tray. The birds peeped in offense, hovering near the top of the cage, and then, when he’d withdrawn the box and closed the door, they flew to the tray, peeping and nodding into the seed.

  “Be careful not to let them out,” his mother said as she came through the door. She was wearing her white nurse’s shoes and purple scrubs. She put her bag on the couch and went in the kitchen. Mateo heard the refrigerator door open.

  “I didn’t,” he said. “Are you home already?”

  “My short day,” she said, returning to the living room sipping a glass of juice. “They’re pretty, no?”

  “When did you get them?”

  «My last birthday. Your father bought me one.»

  «Just one?»

  “One, and he just sat there. He didn’t sing. And we said, What good’s a bird who doesn’t sing?”

  “Heh. He was lonely.”

  “He was lonely. A week later your father came home with a little paper box and said, Here’s the other half.”

  “Did they sing then?”

  “You have ears,” she said, waving at the cage. «They don’t shut up!»

  “It’s nice.”

  “It is nice. And the weather is nice today too.” She finished her juice and was quiet a minute while they watched the birds knock seed out of the tray. Then Sabina said, «Put on your shoes.»

  They walked slowly down Rua Giacomo, past the dragons and the flame-maned horses, past Edilson’s new smiling motorcycle, past the purple waves and the googly-eyed jaguar, past the dancing woman with the skirt made of jungle, and all the way past the planet Saturn.

  “Edilson got big,” Mateo said.

  “Well, he grew up,” Sabina said. “They say he’s going with Olive. Do you remember Olive?”

  “Sure. Tiago’s sister.”

  “She’s much too old for him.”

  “He paints like he’s thirty.”

  “Hm. He may paint like he’s thirty but if he’s not careful his little ding-dong will make him a papai at sixteen.”

  “Mom.”

  She smiled. “Remember when your cousin was with Olive? Aye!”

  “He seems pretty happy with Aline.”

  “For today. We’ll see about tomorrow. So many different people to meet in this city and these kids just keep dating each other.”

  “Heh.”

  They walked further along the arc of the S that was their neighborhood. A moto-taxi went by, then a scooter. A scrawny yellow dog barked at the scooter. They passed an underwater sunset.

  Sabina said, “Vinicius says you have a little bird of your own up in Boston?”

  It took him a moment to realize what she meant and when he did he blushed. “Kind of.”

  “Well that’s good,” she said, nodding. «Does he make you sing?»

  “He did. I showed him everything, all of it. And in the beginning it felt like I was showing him a whole new world or something and he seemed so open to it. But then I don’t know what happened. He hurt me pretty bad, right before I came here. Think maybe I’ve been hurting him longer than that, though.”

  “Ah.” It made her sad to know that he had come home to get away, and not simply to be home. But then it was a relief, too, to know that when he was hurt he wanted to be near her, still, even though he was a man now.

  «It’s complicated,» he said.

  «Very. Yes.»

  “I told him once about how I ended up in the States again. About how you sent me to live at Marjorie’s.”

  “Oh?”

  “He was amazed that you could do that, send me to live with someone who caused you such sadness. He was pretty impressed.”

  “She caused me no sadness. She wasn’t unfaithful.”

  “I guess.”

  She shrugged, moved some hair out of her eyes. “Has it been good for you? To be there?”

  “Yes.”

  “You an
swer so fast. Then I did the right thing.”

  “It was a big thing.”

  “Well you always have to make the best of a bad thing. Could I have left your father? Yes. For a while I wanted to. But I married a man, not an angel. You have to always remember the difference.”

  Thinking of the difference, and of the strange place in between, he said, “I’ve seen Tiago.”

  “Oh?”

  “A couple times. He looks good.”

  “He’s always had that in his favor.”

  “Heh.”

  “But Tiago has—troubles,” she said.

  “...What kind of troubles?”

  “Well.” She shrugged, apparently unwilling to go through the door she’d opened. “They say he goes with—older men. And the men give him things in return.”

  “They say that, huh? Who says that?”

  “The kids.”

  “Vinicius?”

  “Olivia, sometimes, when she and Vinicius fight. She says that Vinicius goes off with Tiago and that’s what they do. I think—well.”

  “Tiago does what he has to do. His parents were not like you and Dad when they found out. His parents never even cared enough to put an H in his name and it was downhill from there. Everything he has he’s gotten by himself. He’s never kept anything from me. I always knew. Always.”

  “I know.” She could see that he was angry and she wanted to touch him, hold him. Instead she said, to change the subject, “Did you see, a while ago, in a magazine they had new pictures of the Moon, of the landing place? Somehow they had a camera in space and you could see, very very tiny,” she held up her pinched fingers at the sky and squinted, “the footprints, the flag of America, the piece of the gold spaceship they left behind.”

  “I didn’t see that, no.”

  She grinned. “I looked for an hour.”

  And he said, “Do you know some people don’t believe humans have ever really been to the Moon? They say it’s just a sham, that the landing was filmed on a stage in Arizona or something.” He was still feeling angry and he added, “Their evidence is compelling. Sometimes I really wonder.”

  “I have heard that.” She touched her chest, as though newly appalled by the old idea. “I believe because I’ve seen pictures and read newspapers and because I watched it on the TV when it was happening. But if none of this proof existed I would still believe.” They passed a shooting star in blue and purple and a satellite rendered in silver; an old explorer’s galleon sailed on the tail of a fiery comet. “I would believe even if there was no evidence. I would believe because it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever heard, and so I choose to believe. A man on the Moon. A man on the Moon, Mateo. Who can possibly benefit from denying such a beautiful thing?”