by Mark Oshiro
The calm was new. And maybe it was a sign that things would be all right.
The bathroom door creaked and Moss glanced over toward the hallway. Javier appeared, a gray towel wrapped around his waist. “I’ll be done in a minute,” he said, and Moss was lost in the water droplets, the way his brown skin gleamed under the hallway lamp, the ease with which his muscles flexed. He was gone as quickly as he arrived.
Moss didn’t know if it was envy or sadness that jolted through him, but it could have been both. I wish I had a body like that, he thought, and he immediately felt pathetic for even allowing the moment to happen. You can’t give in to those thoughts, he reminded himself, and then he stood and darted into the hallway. The door to the bedroom was ajar, so Moss moved into the bathroom, the humidity instantly clinging to his skin. He closed to door behind him and switched on the light.
The mirror was coated in condensation. He grabbed a hand towel off a hook to his left and ran it over the glass, his reflection appearing in the clear streak he made. He wiped away enough of it to see the upper half of his body there, and that awful feeling swept through him again.
“You can do this,” he said, just louder than a whisper, and he ran through the ritual that his therapist had taught him. “This body is mine, and it is perfectly fine.” He breathed in deeply. “I am not ugly. I am not ugly.”
Moss smiled at himself. There. He liked that, the way his face curled up, the wideness of his mouth, the scruff growing evenly around his chin and above his lips, the way it provided contrast against his dark skin. Constance had advised him to latch on to these moments, to cherish them, to remind himself that his brain was constantly betraying him. If Moss could remind himself of the good, he could start to push away the bad. He puffed his chest a bit, ran his hands over it and down across his torso, then pulled his black polo down over his waist.
“You can do this,” he repeated, then ran the water and splashed some on his face, thankful for the rush of alertness it gave him. He dried himself off with a hand towel and took one last lungful of air in before he headed out to dinner, to his fate.
When he entered the dining room, they were all there, his mother and Eugenia laughing at some joke Moss had missed, Javier finishing up setting the table. A new burst of energy jolted through Moss, but it felt good. Thrilling. Intoxicating. “Need any help?” he said to Javier.
“Nah, I’m just about finished,” he replied, then gestured to a seat opposite him. “Sit.”
The smell of Eugenia’s cooking—pollo guisado, she told them—filled him with comfort. When he sat down across from Javier, he didn’t panic. Instead, he smiled as his mother reached under the table to grab his hand, a quiet sign of support. This is real, he reminded himself. I wouldn’t be here unless they wanted me to be.
Moss dug in, slurping down the hot stew, and he listened to Eugenia and his mother swap stories, comparing the life of single motherhood, then rising rents in Oakland, and he just watched them, admiring how effortless they made this seem. Eugenia helped run a beauty supply store farther down in East Oakland, out past Fruitvale, and she’d been there for over a decade, they learned. Moss was so transfixed by her that he was startled when he felt Javier’s foot rub up against his leg. His eyes dashed over to him, and Javier tried to act like he was innocent. Courage spread through Moss, and he winked at Javier.
“You’ll have to tell me how you two met, though,” Eugenia said, reaching out to stroke her son’s arm. “Javier’s been quiet about it.”
“Really?” Moss said. “I’m surprised by that. He’s usually so bold.”
“Am I now?” Javier replied, arching his eyebrow.
Eugenia laughed. “Oh, you know it’s true.” To Wanda, she said, “He can be so full of himself sometimes. Isn’t that true, mijo?”
He waved a dismissal at her. “It isn’t that big of a deal. I saw him on the BART. His bike was pretty sweet, so I told him so. His friend Esperanza was with him.”
“Esperanza?” Eugenia said. “Pretty name.”
“Pretty girl,” said Javier. “Even I can recognize that.”
Moss nudged him. “He just came up to me, all full of swagger and arrogance, and just interrupted our conversation so he could flirt with me.”
Javier acted horrified. “No, no, that’s not how it—”
“I’m just playin’,” Moss said. “I’m glad he talked to me. Though you’re right, Ms. Perez. He’s totally full of himself. Came up to me and hit on me within sixty seconds.”
“Hey, I’m not the one who was oblivious to the fact that he was getting hit on,” Javier said. “You thought I was some straight boy until the first time we hung out.”
“Moss can be a bit oblivious,” Wanda interjected.
Embarrassment rushed into his face, but he didn’t hate it. As Wanda and Eugenia began to talk about how no one had ever taught them how to raise gay sons, Moss realized how lucky he truly was. This wasn’t the nightmare he had expected it to be. His mother and Eugenia seemed to truly get along, and they were already cackling together within the hour.
Moss learned more about Javier and Eugenia, learned about when they’d come to the States, how long she’d worked in a laundromat before getting a better job at a beauty supply store. Wanda shared stories of growing up in Oakland, and all the while, Javier kept rubbing his leg up against Moss’s. They stole glances when they thought no one was looking, but by the end of the night, Moss was sure his mother had caught them once. Maybe twice.
By the time dinner wrapped up and they were bidding the Perez family goodbye, Moss was more certain than ever that he’d stumbled onto a good thing. It was a rarity for him, and he wanted to cherish that.
He kissed Javier good night at the top of the steps. He was sure he floated all the way home.
* * *
Moss woke that night in a terrible sweat, his mother cradling him, shushing him and telling him that everything was going to be all right. He gasped for air, his heart raced, and the darkness of his room was suffocating. But instead of fighting the attack, he let it take its course, and it soon passed. His mother’s face was all creases and lines of worry, and he reached out to stroke it. “Please, Mama, I’m okay,” he said between breaths. “Thank you.”
“The dream again?”
It was all she had to say. He nodded at her, then pushed himself upright, wiping away the sweat from his temples. “Same one.”
She passed him a glass of water and he gulped it down. “I’m sorry, baby. I wish I could take it away from you.”
The images came rushing back into his mind: the men in dark uniforms, their guns raised, bursting into his room, dragging him out of his bed, promising to finish what they started with his father. His mother was always there at the doorway, screaming at them, but unable to stop them as Moss was pulled through the window, away from her, away from safety. He’d lost count of how many times he’d had an iteration of this same dream, and while some of the details changed, the effect was the same. He awoke in a panic, the shrieks and screams spilling into the conscious world.
“It’s been a while since you last had it,” Wanda said, and she put her hand on his forehead. “Did something trigger it this time?”
He shook his head. “I don’t think so. I had a good night, Mama. I wasn’t thinking about it at all.” He sighed. “Maybe that’s why I had it. My brain had to remind me that I’m broken.”
His eyes hadn’t fully adjusted to the darkness, but he knew his mother’s eyes were full of sadness. “Oh, honey,” she said. “You know that isn’t true.”
“I can’t help but think it,” he said softly. “How is Javier ever going to like me once he finds out how bad I am?”
“That’s not fair,” she said. “To yourself or to Javier. I’m sure you’ll have to talk to him about these things, but if he truly cares about you, he’ll accept you for who you are. It’s that simple.”
“Even if that means I might wake him up at night with my messed-up head?”
&n
bsp; He could see her nod, just barely. “You know, your dad snored. Badly. Some days, I just wanted to put a sound bubble around him so that I could sleep. But he couldn’t control that. He wasn’t doing it to torment me, and I accepted that. That’s what love is about, you know? And if Javier really does come to love you, he’ll love your mind for what it is, too.”
He swallowed hard. He hoped she was right. But he couldn’t trust that right at this moment. So while his mother sat there, her hand running up and down his back softly, he cycled through his memories. He needed this, and he cycled from one to the next. The shape of your hands. The smell of the cologne you’d wear when we went to the Grand Lake Theater. He knew these memories, and while they comforted him, they weren’t enough.
The bicycle I got for my ninth birthday, and the horribly tied bow on it. No, that wasn’t it. The night you brought arroz con pollo home and dropped it on the front steps. Moss laughed at that one; his father had been furious. And that led Moss to something he’d not thought about in many years, and it was finally enough:
I remember that time we went over to Lake Merritt, and you chased the Canada geese away from our picnic spot, and they chased you right back. You fell into the lake when you thought you were farther from the edge than you were. You smelled for almost two days, of stale water and rot, and you hated it.
Moss clung to the memory as he fell asleep, his mother curled up next to him.
16
The metal detectors were still off when Moss arrived at school on Wednesday. Their principal had not made any sort of announcement about them the day before, but that morning, in homeroom, he finally addressed them. “They will be recalibrated and tested until next week,” Mr. Elliot’s voice said over the PA, “and we’ll have another test run then. I promise that we’ll have no more unfortunate incidents like the one on Monday.”
That elicited a set of groans from Moss’s homeroom, and Mrs. Torrance was the loudest of the bunch. When some of the students laughed at her, she replied tartly, “What happened to Mr. Phillips is no laughing matter.”
No one brought it up again.
Moss caught Kaisha in the hallways between his first and second class. Her face was slack with exhaustion and she stood motionless in front of her locker, the door open. Her face lit up, however, when Moss placed a hand on her shoulder. “Hey!” she said, and snapped to attention. “Reg is already at home now.”
“Really? That quick?”
She beamed. “He’s a trooper, that one,” she said, pride in her voice. “I admire him a lot.”
“What do you mean?”
“You know, it’s just that … I dunno.” She was deep in thought for a moment. “I think I would have given up a while ago,” she continued. “Nearly losing my parents in a car accident, having my leg smashed, the drunk driver getting off … and now this.”
“It’s a lot for one person to deal with,” said Moss.
“But he’s got so much energy, Moss!” Kaisha’s eyes were wide. “I don’t understand it. All the stuff he’s been through, and…”
She slammed her locker shut and locked it. “How did you get me to talk about things, Moss?” she said, laughing. She started to walk away, but Moss shouted her name.
“Before you go!” he said. “Tonight. Esperanza’s house? Six P.M.?”
“We doing it?” she said.
He nodded his head.
“I’ll be there,” she said, smiling.
Moss cornered Rawiya during lunch, her attention lost in her iPod, and got confirmation that she was attending. Then, after school, he found Bits in the library. He pulled up a seat next to them and began to go over his notes from Mr. Roberts’s biology lecture.
“You going later?” Moss whispered.
Bits subtly nodded their head, their attention buried in a book.
“I’m picking up Javier on the way over, so I’ll see you there.”
Bits inclined their head once. That was all Moss needed. They returned to their work again, and neither of them spoke. Moss did his best to keep his mind on the intricacies of cell replication until four, when Mrs. Hernandez had to close things up. As he stuffed his notebook into his messenger bag, he felt a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll figure this out,” Bits said. “All of us together.”
Moss smiled in affirmation to them, and then Bits was gone.
Moss sent a quick text to Javier: omw.
He slung the bag over his head and let it rest on his back. It was a good day for a ride, and he was eager to get back on his bike again. It had been chilly on his ride to school that morning, and he knew that winter would soon drop over the Bay. He wanted to take advantage of the clear skies and sunshine that afternoon.
So Moss pushed himself faster as he pedaled south toward Lake Merritt. There wasn’t too much traffic on Broadway that day, so he took the lane, drifting downhill smoothly, the wind cooling his face and passing through the air holes in his helmet. He came to a stop at Grand after moving over to the left-turn lane, and he felt his phone vibrate in its protective case on his shoulder. He figured that Javier had beaten him to their meeting place, so Moss left the phone alone, his attention focused on traffic.
When he rolled up to Splash Pad Park, he saw Javier’s black bike on its side in the grass, and Javier himself was hanging from one of the pull-up bars, next to a much younger boy who was being held up by someone older. “Are you ready?” he heard Javier say as he pulled up next to him.
The boy nodded his head. Moss didn’t recognize either of them, but they seemed to know Javier well.
“Three … two … one!” Javier cried, and the two of them raced at pull-ups. The boy’s father did all the work for his son and lifted him in sync with Javier. Moss watched them, and his eyes drifted to Javier’s biceps, which bulged with every pull-up, and his heart fluttered in his chest. Seconds later, Javier began to slow down and struggled to lift himself up while the young boy laughed wildly. “I’m beating you, I’m beating you!” he screamed in between giggles. Finally, Javier dropped off the bar, panting, sweat dripping down the sides of his head.
“You got me, Manuel,” he said, breathless. Manuel’s father put him down and he waddled over to Javier. Manuel raised a hand and Javier gave him a high five. “One day I’ll beat you, I swear.”
“I wish I could do that,” Moss said when Javier turned to look at him.
“You wanna give it a go?” Javier said. He waved to his friends as they left.
“Nah,” Moss said quickly. “We should get going soon anyway.”
Javier leaned over and planted a kiss on Moss’s cheek. “Then let’s go.”
Moss watched Javier pick up his backpack and his bike, one after the other, and wondered when he would discover the catch. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? Maybe Javier had police officers in his family and thought that bad cops were a rare occurrence. Maybe his mother was a lot more religious than he previously thought. Or was Javier just waiting until they had sex, and then Moss would never see him again?
He watched Javier wrap a thick, heavy chain around his waist. “What’s that thing?” Moss asked.
“My lock,” he said. “Got it for my birthday earlier this year.”
“You lock your bike with that?”
“Dude, it’s safe! Thieves can’t cut through this thing. Plus, it’s quite fashionable, wouldn’t you say?” He posed for Moss, his hands on his hips. “Tim Gunn would be proud.”
Moss climbed back on his own bike, shaking his head, and Javier pranced about before getting on his. Well, at least he’s a little weird, Moss thought. Then Javier was off, far ahead of Moss enough that he had to slam his pedals down in order to catch up to him. With a quick look behind him, he passed by Javier, taking the lead as the two of them smoothly coasted up Grand. Moss had suggested they take the back way to Piedmont, since the hills weren’t as steep as they were on the shorter route. As Moss rode, he kept glancing to see that Javier was still behind him, and each time, Javier flashed him a quick smile. Maybe I
am overthinking it, he thought. He still seems to want to be around me.
They pulled up to the Miller house a few minutes later. Javier deftly swung his right leg back over his seat and came to a stop with his left leg still in the cages of his pedal. Moss had seen other people do that before (he hadn’t even bothered to attempt it himself), but watching Javier do it … he felt inexplicably attracted to him. Javier turned, a goofy grin on his face, and Moss desired him so wholly that it frightened him. He’d fostered crushes for as long as he could remember, but as he watched Javier unlock the chain at his waist, sweat glistening on his arms, Moss wanted this one to be real.
“You okay?” Javier said. “You’re welcome to lock up with mine.”
Moss nodded his head. “Yeah, just thinking.” He slung his bag to his front side and pulled out his own lock, and Javier grabbed Moss’s bike and leaned it up against his.
After Moss finished, he rose to see Javier staring up at the Miller residence. “That’s a big house,” Javier said, his voice soft with awe.
“You have no idea,” said Moss. “Wait until you see inside.”
There was a sense of symmetry, of order, to this part of town. The houses here towered over the people. He supposed the neighborhood was quaint in its own way, but he thought it felt too safe. There were no bright colors anywhere, no dirt lots in place of lawns, no rusted chain-link fences.
And the Miller house was a prime example of that. It was light gray with white trim, all sharp angles and expertly painted wood tiles. The front yard—a rare thing in any house in the East Bay—was freshly manicured, the blades of grass practically uniform in height. Peonies and roses sat lining the flower bed, almost equidistant from one another. Esperanza had told him that a man named Guillermo was responsible for that; her parents could study the science behind those plants, but were horrible at any gardening themselves.