by Mima
“Ah…yeah, don’t worry about me,” Diego said and cleared his throat, pulling himself together and shrugged. “Just this coffee is terrible, it’s no big deal.”
“It seemed like a big deal a minute ago when you were ripping into that guy,” Chase nodded toward the cashier at the lunch counter. “What’s going on?”
“Nothing,” His answer was too fast, too quick to seem sincere. “Don’t worry about me.”
“Why not? You worry about me?” Chase retorted and noticed Diego’s eyes warm to a deep brown, his face relax as his fingers fiddled with the coffee cup lid.
“It’s just, you know, been a tense week,” He shrugged and took a deep breath. “I’m not used to dealing with this heavy stuff. I’m not good at it.”
“No one is good at it, Diego.”
“No, but I mean, I don’t know what to say,” Diego quietly replied and turned a bit in his chair. “To you, to your family, I feel like this is one thing that I can’t fix.”
“No one can fix this and no one expects you to fix everything,” Chase quietly commented, his body felt light in the chair as if he could float away. His eyes shifted to a little boy who was around Leland’s age and he felt a sharp pain in his chest. He could barely handle his other two children while in Hennessey and now, he didn’t even want to look at someone else’s child.
“I know but, I still, I feel I should,” Diego’s words were confusing but heartfelt. “I feel that…I don’t know, we’re family, Chase and with family, I always try to do whatever I can to fix something. And this time, I feel, helpless.”
“I appreciate it,” Chase replied, his voice soft, relaxed, he felt defeated and unsure of how to even begin to explain that it wasn’t necessary that Diego worry. “I do, I appreciate it but…it is what it is. We have no choice but to move forward.”
Diego nodded and didn’t reply, his lips tightened up and he finally said, “I told them, at the office, not to talk to you about any of this.”
“Really?”
“Yeah, I spoke to Jolene about it last night,” Diego abruptly turned and touched Chase’s arm. “Not that you have to rush back, I mean that when you do return, Jolene will instruct people to not bring any of this up. I know how you feel about that…”
Chase hadn’t confessed that this was one of his concerns so was impressed by his friend’s instincts. “Thank you, Diego. I definitely don’t want to rehash this at work.”
“And you won’t,” Diego insisted. “If anyone brings it up, I will fire them!”
“You don’t have to go that far,” Chase said with a little laugh, a small drop of joy filled him as he saw Diego’s usual feistiness return. “I was actually thinking of the same thing but wasn’t sure if I should bring it up.”
“You didn’t have to,” Diego insisted. “I know you, Chase, I know you don’t want people fussing over you and I know it would be awkward and difficult. You want to go back and preoccupy your mind. I get that.”
“Sometimes,” Chase started slowly, unsure if he should continue his thoughts. “I feel like you know me better than I know you.”
“What do you want to know?” Diego shrugged. “I have no secrets from you.”
“I feel like I’m not supposed to ask for some reason,” Chase picked his words carefully but didn’t fail to humor Diego, who’s face lit up with a smile.
“You think I’m a gangster, don’t you?” Diego said as he leaned toward Chase, a sinister glint shone through his eyes. “I’m Colombian, the drugs, Escobar, I know I know….that’s what people think when they hear where I’m from, I’m a gangster. I’m surprised when I get through the airport without a cavity search, for Christ sakes.”
“I didn’t mean that,” Chase automatically felt bad even though Diego appeared humored by the concept. “I mean, you know, when I worked for Jolene in Calgary, I hadn’t realized that we weren’t a legit business…”
“Freelance party planners, nothing illegal there,” Diego scrunched up his lips and shrugged. He crossed his legs and his right foot began to jiggle around. “You know, to see how it worked before starting anything officially.”
“The guns? You guys both have guns? The baseball bat incident?”
Diego shrugged again, his foot continued to bop around. “As I said before, we’re from Colombia. We didn’t grow up in a safe place. There was a lot of violence and we, as kids, learned very early that you have no one else to protect you but yourself. It’s different for you. You lived in a safe country.”
“But you’re in that safe country now.”
“Old instincts, they never die,” Diego leaned away from Chase, his eyes studied him carefully. “As for the baseball bat, I’m not exactly The Rock, I need to protect myself.”
“The gun doesn’t do that?” Chase calmly asked even though Diego appeared slightly defensive.
“You shoot someone, it’s pretty messy,” Diego replied with a shrug. “The police get involved and all that…but if you hit an intruder with a baseball bat, it’s different. You know, bruises and broken bones can come about in many ways. A bullet, it can only come from a gun.”
Chase nodded and remained silent.
“I got no secrets, Chase,” Diego said and leaned closer to him. “I tell you anything. Anything. I would tell you about the first time I put a man in the hospital and the last time I jerked off. But only you, no one else, cause you’re family to me. I tell you anything.”
“I would rather hear about the guy you put in the hospital,” Chase spoke matter of fact tone and Diego let out a short laugh.
“Are you sure? He replied with a sanctimonious grin. “The other story is pretty good too.”
“So how many men have you put in the hospital?” Chase asked, ignoring his last comment. “Do you even know?”
“One can never be sure,” Diego replied. “But I beat the living shit out of a guy from high school when I was 15 or 16 and before you feel bad for him, I will tell you, he beat me up first. Him and a gang of guys.”
“Why?”
“In their words? Cause I was a maricón,” He shuffled uncomfortably in his chair and briefly looked away. “It’s faggot in Spanish.”
Chase studied his face, as he turned back with a spark of anger in his eyes.
“It was confusing cause that boy and me, we were messing around but he must’ve felt ashamed of it later,” Diego continued and turned toward Chase. “He told his friends that he heard I was gay and they grabbed me after school, beat the shit out of me. So when I got better, I found him, when he was alone.” A mischievous grin formed on his lips. “My mother, she thought it was nice when I left the house with a baseball bat cause she assumed I was going to play with some of the local kids. I wasn’t going to play no baseball.”
“You put him in the hospital?” Chase quietly asked, as someone passed by talking on a cell phone.
Diego leaned on his hand and nodded. “I damn near killed the fucker. I broke his arm and fucked up his leg. I would’ve done more damage but instead, I threatened him. If he ever told anyone I did this, I would kill him next time.”
Chase wasn’t surprised. This was the same man he had watched attack a stranger in the condo earlier that year. It was clear that it wasn’t his first time attacking someone. He wasn’t sure what to say so continued to listen as Diego’s accent became stronger as he spoke.
“No one ever bothered me again,” Diego continued and leaned back in his chair, briefly closing his eyes. They suddenly sprang open again. “Until I got to California but there, it wasn’t just because I was gay, it was because people there, there’s a lot of racism.”
“I can relate, at least, a bit,” Chase joined in and Diego looked intrigued. “I never thought about being native until I moved to Calgary and people were looking at me differently. I never had that happen before and it took me a while to learn it was because they thought I
was dangerous. At first, I thought it was because of my size until I was at the corner store one day and overheard some woman whispering to the owner to ‘keep an eye on the fucking Indian’. I guess I was a little naïve before.”
“People, they want you to think they aren’t racist but they are,” Diego insisted. “Whites, they think they are superior more than they don’t.”
“I don’t know about that,” Chase disagreed. “Not all white people are like that.”
“A lot are,” Diego commented and pressed his lips together. “I saw it more in the states than here, I will admit but it might be the circles I traveled in.”
“I’m half white,” Chase commented.
“Phew! Barely,” Diego teased and rolled his eyes. “I’m whiter than you, amigo.”
“I have another question,” Chase asked boldly and Diego looked comfortable, only raising his eyebrows. “How did you get your money?”
A grin swept over his face and he waited for a moment before answering.
“From my daddy.”
“Your father?”
Diego let out a sharp laugh. “My father? He won’t even speak to me since he found out I’m gay,” he sat his coffee cup on the floor beside his chair leg. “No, my daddy, amigo, the man I started having an affair with shortly after I moved to the states. Remember, I told you.”
“An older man?”
“Yeah, I mean, he was a little older than I am now,” Diego said with a shrug. “Established, rich, he was from the old school so he hid the fact that he was gay from everyone but yet, everyone knew, you know? Some thought he was divorced because his wife was a bitch but his wife got tired of catching him getting sucked off by other guys.”
“That might but a strain in a relationship,” Chase quipped and Diego merely grinned and looked away.
“He was….handsome and saw a naïve 20-year-old, an inexperienced man who needed someone to take him under his wing. Teach him things; you know, in and out of the bedroom and that was me.”
For a brief second, Chase had a glimmer of a previous conversation with Diego where he admitted that Jolene had concerns that he was doing the same with him since they shared a living space.
“People thought that I was just some kid he took in, was helping out, a homeless immigrant learning English,” Diego’s eyes were staring at the floor as if deep in thought. “He groomed me, made me into the man I am today. Helped me with my English since he was bilingual and ah…taught me to have some class and I, in exchange taught him about good coffee and kept him satisfied in bed.”
“Did you love him?” Chase asked boldly.
“In a way,” Diego replied. “But not ‘in love’ that’s a rare and special thing. It doesn’t happen every day and if you’re lucky, once in a lifetime. Not all relationships are about the romantic love that you see on television, sometimes they are more of a business arrangement.”
His dark eyes met with Chase’s and quickly looked away.
“Anyway, he died a few years ago and left me a lot of money,” Diego said and tensed up. “It was…awkward since he had children my age who didn’t exactly appreciate it but, there wasn’t much they could do.”
“Were you expecting it?”
“No, not at all,” Diego replied. “I mean, he kept me, you know, I guess you would call it a ‘sugar daddy’ and gave me jobs, so I had something on a résumé, made me take courses to learn business skills, made me a US citizen with his connections and those same connections are now working on making me a Canadian citizen.”
It was a stunning confession. It was difficult to envision Diego ever being in an imbalanced relationship where he had little or no control but relied so much on someone else. It made him think of his own relationship with Audrey when they first married and he immediately had compassion. He knew what a weak position that was and he also knew that Diego was holding back. There was more, he sensed it.
“Powerful man?”
“Very much so,” Diego suggested with a nod. “Very very much so but, you know, he was good to me, I was attracted to him so it wasn’t like he had to force me into his bed but I wanted to explore and so, I cheated on him a lot. I slept with a lot of men. I was rebellious and didn’t appreciate being tied down and he understood that about me.”
“And now?”
“I guess we mellow with age,” Diego seemed lost in thought as he leaned back in his chair, he suddenly looked depressed. “But you know, we never really get what we want. We take what we can get and hope for the best.”
Chase didn’t reply.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
He felt haunted by his son’s ghost during the day, plagued by nightmares when he tried to sleep. Chase was restless, exhausted and felt as though the funeral was somehow supposed to sweep everything under the rug. It didn’t happen that way. He couldn’t stop thinking about Leland for a moment. Sometimes he would smile over something Diego said but it was as if he suddenly caught himself and stopped; how could he smile when his son was dead? Did he have a right to be happy?
After returning to Toronto, he briefly avoided Audrey. Talking to his ex-wife was far too painful. However, after a few days, Chase realized that he was only hurting himself because she was the only other person who knew what he was going through. And yet, they weren’t really going through the same thing because she was the mother; she carried Leland for nine months and she was with Leland for every day of his life while Chase had faded into the background.
They started to have many late night conversations. It was usually just after Audrey put the twins to bed, forcing her to think about the one son she would never read a bedtime story to again. She would call Chase in tears, sometimes unable to speak but eventually talking about her own personal hell.
“How is Albert doing?” Chase asked one day, wondering if maybe her husband would be a better source of comfort than himself. It was understandable that they would connect with this experience but her current partner was in the same house, so it made more sense that she be with him and not to call her ex-husband.
“He doesn’t understand,” She sniffed. “He doesn’t get it.”
“I think he does,” Chase spoke in a gentle tone, concerned that Albert might get the wrong idea about these very regular conversations. “He saw Leland like a son too.”
“I just can’t look at him,” Audrey quietly admitted. “I can’t look into his eyes and see the same man who seemed more concerned about comforting your mother that day than his own wife. And I can’t look at her either. I will never forgive your mother.”
Chase understood that but as the days went by, now over a week since Leland’s death, his anger subsided. Not that he didn’t hold his mother responsible in any way but because it didn’t make a difference. Being angry with her didn’t bring Leland back and getting through the day was enough of a struggle without gathering enough energy to be angry with his mother.
“Audrey, for what it’s worth, I think you need to give Albert a break,” Chase replied softly. “Don’t be angry with him. You need each other now. Talk to him.”
She reluctantly agreed after some more coaxing and their daily conversations were soon replaced by regular text messages.
Although everyone from Hennessey attempted to keep up with Chase after the funeral, he didn’t have it in him to meet them half way. He would reply to their messages but didn’t go in-depth when answering their questions. He was ‘fine’ when they asked because he refused to talk about the emotional tornado that was ripping through his heart because it simply wasn’t somewhere he wanted to go. And did he want to connect with these people? Maggie, Kelsey, his sister, everyone who had almost forgotten him since leaving the province were suddenly back in his life with a vengeance? It didn’t fit for him. It was as if they were doing it out of a sense of duty.
It was on the Thursday afternoon after returning from Hennessey that
Chase decided to return to work the next morning. Getting that first day in would be the hardest and at least it would be followed by the weekend, so it would cushion his return. Diego seemed pleased with this decision.
“You’re right, amigo,” He replied as he fussed over his lime tree, checking the soil carefully to make sure it had enough water. “I think that it is best that you get back into a regular routine and sitting around here by yourself all day, it’s not good, you know?”
“I know,” Chase agreed and took a deep breath. “I’m more tired than if I was at work.”
“Grief is exhausting,” Diego replied as he gently pushed his lime tree into its regular spot. “It will be okay.”
Chase got up the next morning and followed his usual routine, as he had before Leland died. In a way, it felt mechanical but at least he was taking action. On some level, he knew that this was important and that timing was everything. You couldn’t let things slip away too far otherwise it might be impossible to ever get them back again.
He dreaded the first few minutes back at the office. He didn’t want to see a hint of sadness in anyone’s eyes, those sympathetic looks that suggested they were silently waiting for him to fall apart but most of all, he didn’t want to be pitied. However, he should’ve realized that Diego would be all over it.
Walking ahead of Chase, he swung open the door much like a cowboy strutting into a saloon, with a sharp, warning look in his eyes, he took in the office. Deborah was on the phone. She barely glanced in their direction. They met Sylvana in the hallway, who stopped to talk to Diego about something, ignoring Chase, who slipped by, almost running into Gracie coming out of the staff room; she gave him a kind, yet enthused smile that suggested she was happy to see him. Next was Benjamin who merely smiled and said, ‘Good to see you back,” shook his hand then walked away.
A huge weight fell from his shoulders and he thought about Diego’s recent comments on how work was your ‘other family’ and like real families, there was dysfunction combined with angst but at the end of the day, everyone was in your corner. He appreciated it more than he had before, suddenly feeling that connection that he had simply ignored in the past.