by Mara White
“If I go to the shaman with you, will you stop hiding your feelings?”
“My feelings are disgusting, Adam. Trust me, you don’t want to see them.”
Look who’s talking, I want to say. Adam is not very communicative. He hides shit more than I do.
I lick jelly off of my pointer finger and feel like we’re fighting. We came together because of our similar pain, but sometimes I think we’re together for the wrong reasons. Two desperately sad people trying to make a go of it. Play up the good and squash down the bad parts.
Sometimes it feels like we’re each other’s second choice. Adam would rather have his brother back than a life with me, and I’d give up everything to have Lucky instead of him looking back at me.
“Could you pick up my prescription for me?”
“Again? I swear you just got a refill last week?”
Adam shrugs as he hastily kisses my cheek. He takes more drugs than I do, but none of it seems to affect him. His prescription for Xanex alone would knock me on my ass for a week.
Luke, rides his new scooter as we walk to my mother’s house; no kindergarten for my baby today, since my episode managed to buy me three days off from work. The neighborhood has changed so much Lucky wouldn’t even recognize it. Coffee shops and restaurants that you used to have to go all the way downtown for now abound on these, the vibrant streets of my childhood. Trendy coffee shops pop up mid-block where there used to be liquor stores and barber shops or the occasional family run pharmacy.
“Luke, wait up!”
The streets were just shittier back then—no bakeries, more like domino tables and corner boys. We walk past the playgrounds where Luciano, Yari and I spent our long summer days. How many secrets were whispered, hearts broken, even loves professed and retracted? These are the sacred stomping grounds overflowing with vivid memories. Some beautiful, some cringeworthy. Even gone, I feel Lucky by my side; he’s never not with me.
Luke runs ahead because he loves to climb all the stairs on his own. We have to walk past Titi’s apartment on the way to my mom’s. The memories run so strong there that I’m often overcome. I carry the scooter and run my fingers along the wall.
Red pieces of sea glass offered from his palm, and the smell of marijuana smoke curling up from his seductive mouth. Stolen kisses and tears. God, the yelling and the fighting. The clandestine glances, the innocent arousal. Our not-so-graceful attempts to sate it.
A first kiss in his mama’s kitchen that I will never get over.
I’d give anything to relive it again. Lucky holding my wrists back, exploring my mouth for the first time, breaking the seal on our secret, our pact of true love. We pushed conformity aside in exchange for something stronger. Together. Lucky and I didn’t even realize how big our love was until we took the first step. Then it was out of our hands and impossible to hold back.
I think my love for Lucky was already written in my blood. We fought it with everything we had and it made both of us miserable. But I don’t believe either one of us ever had any real control over it.
Too numerous to count are the times I’ve had to sit down on the step near their door, while I’m bombarded with memories so real they terrify me. Not once did I ever step foot into Lucky’s apartment after his death. It’s a sealed tomb, a shrine, the only DNA left. Sitting in front of Titi’s door, I like to torture myself with questions: Did he think of me while he lay dying? Did he wish he could tell me one certain thing before he left? Did he wish I were there with him? Was there pain? Or worse, was his death colored by regret?
So fresh are these perpetual wounds that after almost five years, I don’t know that I’ll ever recover or ever feel whole again.
“Luciano!” I whisper into the empty space. I imagine him upon the roof again. He’d poke his head down through the hatch.
What the fuck, Bey?
He’d reach his arm down to help me crawl up to him.
Get up here, loca. What you need is a smoke.
I can imagine him berating me. I can feel my timid hand in his sure one, can smell Titi’s fabric softener clinging to his T-shirt, the cigarette smoke, the adrenaline that his sweat always seemed to be spiked with. I can taste the sharp whiskey on his lips, the lust on his tongue. It’s probably not healthy to live a life so full of ghosts, to talk to your dead cousin more than you do your friends.
“Luciano, I can’t!” I cry into my own hands. Tears must have started somewhere between sitting and losing my shit. I rock my body back and forth as a fresh wave of pain washes over me. I’m unable to function; this slash cuts too deep, it lacerated my heart and all of the good that was in there drained right out of me. I don’t feel like an adult and I’ve got a child to take care of.
“Belén, come upstairs,” Mami says from above. It’s not the first time she’s caught me in this spot in a state of desolation. It embarrasses me that I can’t move on. What the fuck is wrong with me? I’ve got so much to be thankful for and instead I wallow in melancholy.
“Wipe your face, honey,” she says, handing me a clean dishtowel. “Luke is watching Thomas the Train, go get yourself cleaned up.”
“I’m sorry, Mami,” I say, wiping away the salty tear tracks. Two flights up we go, away from the graveyard.
“Don’t be sorry, hija mía. I cry too now and then. You lost the boy you loved before you were grown. That little heartache will always be there.”
“It’s not little, it’s huge,” I say, exasperated. I fill up the glass by the side of the sink with water from the tap.
“You know what I mean. You can’t cut something when it’s still growing, because then it won’t thrive and it won’t sprout. No fruit on the tree, you’ll be lucky to get flowers.”
I gulp the tap water down and smile through the drinking glass at my mom. My mother, the closeted poetess, queen of the mystical metaphor.
“So you’re saying that my heart is deformed—that it’ll never work right?”
“No, silly. I’m saying that your little girl heart will always hurt. Love with your big heart, the one God taught you to use when our lives all fell apart. Love Luke and Adam the way they deserve. Luciano is gone, Belén. Don’t spend your life pouring love into something that’s not there anymore. It won’t bring him back.”
I nod my head and use my arms to support me on the side of the sink. I smile at my mother, yet there are still a million tears I hold back. Truth has a razor’s edge and it cuts deeper than fuck.
He’s not coming back. He’s gone. Move on with your life, I tell myself, like I have so many times before. Like everyone probably says behind my back while they roll their eyes at my hanging on.
“If you keep riling him up, he won’t be able to settle right, you’ll make him restless and conflicted.”
“Luke?” I say, rubbing my running nose on the red and white checkered dishtowel.
“Luciano,” she says, nodding. My mom is so superstitious that sometimes I want to laugh at her.
“Don’t talk about him like he’s alive!” I say and throw the towel onto the kitchen table and my arms into the air.
“Just because he’s transitioned doesn’t mean he doesn’t need our prayers.” My mom puts her hand over Lucky’s picture that hangs in the hall, like she’s shielding him from my harsh words.
“Mami, lighting a candle in church is one thing, saying I’m making him restless is going a little too far. I’m trying to move on. And you’re conjuring him up like we can talk to him whenever we want!”
I storm off to the living room and lean over my son on the couch. He’s enraptured with the cartoon so I kiss his forehead and ruffle his hair.
“Mama’s gonna go lay down. Ask Abuelita if you need anything.”
“Mami, I’ll be in my room,” I shout toward the kitchen. The vault of my childhood looks about the same as when I left it. And I throw myself down on my old bed just like I did when I’d return home from school to my sanctuary. Nothing has changed in here; in this room I’m still a teenager,
obsessed with good grades, fighting endlessly with my best friend and loving Luciano between every blink and with every single breath.
Belén’s time capsule. In here hover the aspirations of a young girl, alongside the blazing fire of young love. The two were incompatible. The druggie and the good girl, we never would have worked out. More like crash and burn. Lucky in jail, or worse, overdosed on the corner. As a kid, I possessed the crystal clarity of knowing exactly what I wanted. These days it’s not so easy. I lie down on my bed and run my fingers over the covers. I fall asleep in the fetal position without getting under them.
Antes
“Belén,” I say and shake her shoulder. “Belén, baby, wake up!” She’s disoriented. Completely lost for a moment. She blinks her eyes open to the bald light bulb on the ceiling and my face up close, looming over her. I’m out of breath. And sweaty. I can smell humid summer heat from running around in the city leaking out of my clothes.
“What? Oh my God, what time is it? Did I oversleep?” Belén asks me frantically. Her greatest fear is missing school unintentionally. Mine is accidentally tripping while I’m running from the police.
“No, loca, since when do I wake you up for school? I need you to spot me some cash if you can.”
I’m sure she can tell, by the way words take their sweet time coming out of my mouth, that I’m drunk and sky-high. But I know she won’t say anything. She never does.
“Okay,” she says, sitting up and rubbing her eyes. “Are you in trouble? I only have twenty dollars that Tía Hemi gave me for my birthday. It’s on the dresser in the ballerina jewelry box.”
Just like that, I’m as low as I’ve ever felt. I’ve stolen shit before, even robbed people, but this takes the cake. I’m taking a kid’s birthday money from her fucking ballerina box. And she thinks I’m waking her up for school. God, what a piece of shit. Fourteen-year-old sweet girl, fifteen-year-old juvenile delinquent.
“Forget it, Len. I don’t want to take your birthday money. Go back to sleep.”
“You can take it, Luciano. I swear. I don’t need it.” She sits up when she says it and the covers fall from her chest. My eyes fall there too and suddenly shit gets real and I can see how inappropriate it is for me to even be in here. Things have changed since we were kids and now there’s this distance between us. It was just this year when I noticed my friends starting to look at her. Anger boils inside me and I bite my tongue, trying not to say any stupid shit to her.
“Take it,” she says, and her eyes pleading with me. “Really, Luciano, I don’t need it.”
“Fucking A, Belén! Would you let any guy come in here and take your money? You don’t even know what it’s for! Do you want to get in trouble? Huh?”
Her eyes go wide and fill to the brim with tears. I want to pull my own hair out, smash my fist through the drywall, or even better, the window. Wake up Tía Betty—she can call the cops for all I care.
“I’m sorry,” she says, and my anger rages higher. I’m not mad at her; I’m mad at myself. I’m such a fuck up and being around her only reminds me.
“Don’t fucking apologize, Belén!” My fist comes down hard on the headboard. She yelps and recoils from me, her eyes full of fear. I cringe at my own behavior, at how impulsive I am when I’m lit like this. She’s the last person I want to hurt and yet once again, I’m doing it.
“Len, I’m sorry. Fuck. What am I even doing?” Sweat drips down my forehead and I swipe it away.
She sniffs and wipes at her eyes and nose with the back of her hand like a kid.
“Come here,” I say and pull her into my arms. She’s wearing a thin pink nightgown. I can feel the upswing in her pulse and the silent sobs that shake her body. I pull her down on top of me as I recline on the bed. It feels so natural that I don’t stop to think how fucked up it is that I’m crawling in bed with her. That I almost hit her. That I want to kiss the living hell out of her.
I pray to my own dick not to get hard. I pat her back platonically and wish away the sensation of her breasts against my chest, how I can feel the heat of her center against my upper thigh.
“Lenny, calm down. Shush. It’s me. I’m not going to hurt you.”
I probably just fucked her up for life. Me and my selfish, fiending ass had to go and traumatize her. Poor kid.
“Len, I love you. Stop crying, please.” I can feel the hot wet puddle of her tears on my shoulder. She’ll wake up sleep-deprived and paranoid and hate the cocksucker who did it. I pull the covers up over us and realize what a mistake it is. We’re too old and it’s not okay for me to crawl into her bed, no matter how many childhood nights we spent together in the past.
It’s dark and warm, so comfortable in her bed with her scent all around me, that it starts messing with my head. I run my mouth back and forth across her temple and she clings to me with a force that feels supernatural.
“I should go,” I whisper to the shell of her ear.
“Please stay,” she says and throws a leg over me. My goddamned heart lurches in my chest cavity. I can’t say no to her and my dick won’t listen to me. I close my eyes and breathe and I swear to fuck that Belén is almost imperceptibly rotating her hips on my leg.
I try to remove her arm across my chest and the leg that crosses my thighs. It’s against my own willpower because all I want to do is sink into her and lose myself in her sweet warmth. Just sleep next to her again. I don’t need a fix because this is better.
“Jesus Fucking Christ, Belén! You make me insane!” I shout in a crazed whisper into her ear. I slide her limbs off and she deadweights them back. I’m caught in a tangled trap I never want to be freed from.
“If Betty sees us, it’s not going to look good. Don’t get us in trouble, little girl. You want me to have to wake her up? I will if I have to!”
Belén takes the opportunity of my distraction to slide her hips over mine until she’s completely straddling me. And I think maybe she’s half asleep doing it. Her face seems so contented and her breathing is steady. But when her hips sleepily circle again, a bolt of electricity shoots right through me. My cock is as hard as a rock against her heat. I moan out loud when she does another lazy circle and try to turn us to our sides.
“Stay until I fall asleep again. Please?” she asks, her eyes jolting wide open and scaring me. She wasn’t sleeping for a second, just pretending.
“I gotta go,” I counter. She pouts and wraps her arms around me.
“I’m scared. You scared me. So now you have to comfort me.”
I let my stomach muscles go slack and my head falls back against the pillow.
“Fair enough,” I say and kiss the top of her head. “Belén, only for you, I do shit I don’t want to.”
Después
My pockets are so jam-packed I should probably get a man purse. Keys, four separate ID cards, a passport, dog tags, and a switchblade that I take everywhere all get slammed down onto the dresser.
Hotels here have a plaque on the dresser or nightstand that points the direction to Mecca for praying purposes. Used to seem strange, but now it’s par for the course. I get stared at a lot, and in the beginning, it made me self-conscious. I thought it was because of my injuries, because people thought I was disabled, not because I was a foreigner. Now that I look more or less normal, I think they stare ’cause I’m different, not ’cause they feel sorry for me. I’ve put back on all of the weight I lost since the accident, a lot of it muscle, from working my ass off in the gym.
I try to talk to my ma every Sunday. She went back to DR to get away from everything that reminded her of me. I ruined the Heights for her, so she high-tailed it back to the island where she was born. I wonder if she regrets it now? Probably ruined her life by letting a year go by without telling her where the fuck I was. They got a special place in hell for me for letting her think I was dead. What a great fucking son. But I felt like I didn’t have a choice. I send her the majority of my salary now and she’s got a nice little place with what she saved up. It’s the l
east I can do, there isn’t really anyway to make that shit up to her.
I tear into the complimentary package of Medjool dates that also comes with the room. I know they’re used to break the fast during holy days, but it seems like they always have them no matter what place I stay, regardless of the holidays. I eat ’em, religious or not, they taste pretty great. I call down to the front desk to reserve a wake-up call. Even though the prayer chants will wake me up, I want to be double sure. Ever since my head injury I’ve developed a fear of sleeping. I’m scared of having flashbacks, of dreaming about Belén, scared of having a stroke and never waking up again. I want absolute control and sleep doesn’t give it to me. I’m terrified of the guilt that creeps its way into my mind, making me second guess everything I’ve ever done. I wonder if I made the wrong decision. If I should have said fuck it, fuck biology, fuck norms, fuck gossip and standards; if I want to be with Bey I’ll be with her and what the hell is anybody gonna do about it? Sleep is a continual reel of me doubting myself.
I bounce on the king-size bed and rake my fingers through my hair. We move from site to site and the company springs for hotel rooms, which is nice if you want to feel like you don’t have a home. No root to grasp onto, a different bed week to week. Not sure what kind of lifestyle this is but it’s not one I’d ever imagined for myself. A frustrated groan escapes me as I cover my face with my hands.
My cell phone buzzes twice and I hold it to my ear.
“Cabrera,” I say.
“Van’s downstairs,” the voice on the line decrees.
My job is an escape. I’m basically a glorified security officer. A mall cop, but a mobile one, out here in the desert. We run gigs from Al Mafraq to Azrac and everywhere in between. We’re kind of in neutral territory—at least considering sharing borders with Iraq and Syria. I accompany diplomats in cars mostly and escort them into buildings. We wear US Army-issued helmets, and carry standard-issue machine guns, in addition to an M-4. I wear tactical armor, basically a bullet-proof vest. Some days I’m just a guy at a checkpoint, standing in the blazing sun verifying passports and waving the important people through to wherever the fuck they’re going.