by Lucas Rocha
“Dude, chill.” I smile, maybe because he used the word friend without a second thought. He really seems bothered by the situation, and the booze is amplifying his feelings, putting him near that state where people start crying for no reason. It’s a little funny, I have to admit, to see his eyes filling with sentimental tears. “This is way better than staying home and waiting for nightmares to come. I actually have to thank you for getting me out of the house. Now come on, we have work to do.”
We complete the odyssey of getting down the stairs to the first floor. Victor and Sandra are dancing and drinking, still under the stairs. She gives me the stink eye, and Victor seems, more than anything, confused.
“VICTOR!” I scream in his ear when the transition brings the volume down a little. “MY PHONE RAN OUT OF BATTERY. CAN I BORROW YOURS?”
“WHAT?” he asks, confused.
It’s the only idea I can come up with on such short notice. Sticking my hand in his pocket and grabbing his phone would be both inappropriate and inefficient, since most people keep their screens locked and I have no way of knowing his code. Stealing his phone and disappearing in the crowd or shattering it on the floor wouldn’t be very cool of me. But if I could unlock the screen and pretend I’m making a call, I’m sure I can delete the damn audio.
“PHONE. I NEED TO BORROW ONE. CAN I USE YOURS?”
The music is so loud, and Victor nods but doesn’t move to put his hand in his pocket and get his phone, which leads me to the conclusion he couldn’t understand a single word I said.
But Sandra did. She looks from me to Henrique, suspicious, and narrows her eyes before I can ask for his phone a third time.
“YOU CAN HAVE MINE!” She flashes a pleasant smile and hands me the phone, already on the dial screen. Victor resumes his dancing, totally carefree, and doesn’t even realize what’s going on around him.
Henrique’s eyes widen when he sees that Sandra is trying to hand me her phone, and in an act of desperation, he does the only thing his drunken mind can come up with as a reasonably acceptable idea.
“I LOVE THIS SONG!” he screams, spreading his arms buoyantly, aiming at Sandra’s hand and, right on target, hitting her phone.
The phone flies across the dance floor as she screams:
“HEY, WHAT THE HELL?!”
I see the little black brick spinning in the air and landing on the floor amid the people dancing.
“OH GOD, SANDRA, I’M SO SORRY!” Henrique yells, and it’s obvious he’s not feeling even a little bit of remorse.
Henrique runs toward the phone he just knocked down, asking the crowd to let him pass. Sandra goes after him, staring daggers at me as if I were the one responsible.
“WHERE DID THEY GO?!” Victor looks around, frowning. “WHAT’S GOING ON?”
Before Victor can realize what’s happening, the music stops completely, and the lights go off. Everyone starts booing at the sudden interruption, but the stage lights soon go on, and people switch to cheering.
Sandra retrieves her phone, and it seems intact. Henrique is practically kneeling beside her, apologizing. When I look over again, Henrique has disappeared toward the bar, and in less than a minute he comes back with two beers in an attempt to make amends. He hands one of the bottles to Sandra with an awkward smile. She stares at him suspiciously but accepts the beer and takes a sip.
“What happened?” asks Victor, in a normal tone of voice now that there’s no music in the club, as soon as the two of them come back to where we are.
“A little accident, but all is well!” Henrique answers, making Sandra toast with him in a sign of peace.
Henrique’s eyes fall on me again, begging me to continue trying to delete the message from Victor’s phone.
I hate him so much right now.
“Victor, I wonder if I could use your phone to make a call? Mine ran out of battery.”
“Sure!” he says, and I realize this is the first time he understands my request. Sandra does not complain or ask why I’m being so persistent about this, and Victor, oblivious, grabs his phone from his pocket and unlocks it. “The battery is about to die, so you’ll have to be fast.”
I smile with the phone in my hands, and I’m already ahead of the game, trying to find the app on the main screen. It’s a total breach of privacy, and I’m absolutely certain it’s not the right thing to do, but Henrique begged me to, and—
Victor’s phone screen goes black, the battery dead.
Why the hell doesn’t anyone in this group charge their freaking phones?!
IAN HANDS ME THE PHONE. He seems a bit frustrated.
“What is it?” I ask.
“Out of battery.”
“Oh, crap. I should have plugged it in before I left my house.”
I’m not too worried, though, since Sandra is with me, and whenever my phone dies, my mom calls her to make sure I’m still alive.
I put the phone back in my pocket and turn my attention to the stage.
I step closer to Henrique, smiling, and hold his hand. We look at the stage and stay that way, like two silly lovebirds, hand in hand.
Silly. That’s a bit how I feel when I’m by his side, as if my head were too light and floating across space, away from my worries. The fear now plays only a small cameo in something much larger and way more intense.
Love. Is that what I’m feeling, after all? This sensation that being next to him is the best feeling in the world, is this what the experts call being in love? I don’t know if there’s a rational definition or if what’s in the dictionary corresponds precisely to this mix of emotions boiling inside me. All I know is that it feels good, that holding hands with him is the only thing I need right now. Not the sex we’ve already had, the kisses we’ve already exchanged, or the way we’ve been doing things up to this point, like we’re in a nonlinear movie, but just this: intertwined fingers, his warm hand against my cold one, the silence as the two of us pay attention to the stage, the slight squeeze he gives my hand, signaling that the show is about to start.
“There’s something I need to tell you.” I hear his voice in my ear, and I lower my head a little so he doesn’t have to strain his neck so much. His voice is a little slow, and I know he’s drunk. “I didn’t think you were going to come tonight …”
“I thought about not coming,” I admit. “But something told me I would regret it.”
He opens his mouth in a goofy smile. A drunk smile.
“And I might have … thought some things … and said some things that aren’t true.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I left you a message on—”
“Let’s not talk about this right now,” I say, because I don’t want to think about our arguments. His breath on my ear is passionate and intense and sends shivers down the back of my neck. “I don’t want to … think about what’s in the past.”
So I come closer to his lips and kiss them. At first he responds shyly, but little by little he increases the intensity, as if he wants us to become one. And that kiss shows me how I’m not the only one who’s vulnerable, not the only one who’s afraid and doesn’t know what his future is going to look like, not the only one trying to be happy, despite all things conspiring against that happiness.
We pull away when the music and lights become frantic and smoke from the stage takes over the entire club. Two strong men—naked except for golden speedos, just like the creature Frank-N-Furter created—come up, carrying a folded carpet, the ends of it propped on their shoulders. I know exactly what’s about to happen, thanks to Sandra’s pressuring me to watch Cleopatra, even though the movie is over three hours long.
The two men put the carpet down, and everyone seems dumbfounded.
Amateurs.
The rug starts moving, and people cheer. The men in golden speedos help unfold the carpet, and from within rises Cleopatra, the queen of the night, with her blue dress, straight black hair falling to her shoulders, her head adorned in gold, makeup outlining her
eyes with electric-blue contacts.
“There are never enough hours in the days of a queen, and her nights have too many,” she says softly before the music bursts into our ears.
The crowd claps and cheers when Bibi Montenegro starts walking from one side to the other, lip-syncing to a song and making everyone laugh. She’s perfect onstage. Her dark skin shines with the gold in her makeup and ornaments; she’s a moving jewel, and each step she takes seems to have been designed to highlight her best poses. People get their cameras out for pictures and videos, and she really does look like a queen.
The music ends, and people won’t stop clapping. Her forehead is covered in sweat and her chest comes up and down with heaving breaths, but her smile communicates that exhaustion is a small price to pay for the joy of being up there in this moment.
She brings her mic to her lips. “I am the Nile!” she says in a powerful voice, making everyone scream even louder, which is hard to believe is possible. “I will have sons. Isis has told me.”
When she says that, she lifts her head up and raises her hands, making her tunic flutter. The men in gold speedos unstrap the ties of the tunic, revealing a different outfit, this time a swimsuit covered in golden embroidery, like the grooves of a river on a map, and the other drag queens start walking in from both sides of the stage.
Everybody in the club goes wild.
The next song starts playing, and everyone starts dancing rehearsed choreography, driving the audience to a complete frenzy. I see Henrique smile, proud of his friend in front of everyone, drawing her energy from the crowd’s cheers. He holds me by the waist, and the two of us contemplate the noisy show in silence, and all I know that I don’t want this night to ever end.
MY MOUTH TASTES LIKE RUBBER.
My head is spinning.
My stomach feels like there’s a rave going on inside it.
My God, I want to die.
I’ll never ever drink another drop of alcohol.
I raise my hand toward the phone on the nightstand, unplug the charger, and check what time it is. It’s eleven a.m., and the world hasn’t stopped spinning yet. The last thing I remember is seeing Eric having the best night of his life, and the rest is in flashes: running into the bathroom and locking myself in the stall, throwing up all the wine, tequila, and beer; Sandra holding me as I say, “Nooo, I don’t want to leeeave,” even though the sun was already rising and the only people left in the club were the bouncers and the cleaning staff; and then devouring an overpriced hot dog while hearing Victor say I was in no condition to go home by myself and also where the hell was Eric? I vaguely recall Victor pushing me into a taxi and talking to a drag queen he didn’t know, maybe Mad Madonna or Nicolle Lopez, who was kind enough to tell the driver where I live.
Victor. He was sitting next to me in the cab.
Oh, crap. He stayed over.
I raise my head too quickly and bring my hand to it, because the world is still spinning. My throat is dry, and I’m wearing the same pants and socks as last night. My shirt is hanging on the desk chair, and the sheets are on the floor, making an impromptu bed that no one is using.
I drag myself out of bed and hear someone talking outside. It’s not Eric’s or Victor’s voice. It’s Sandra’s.
“You’re not getting into an argument with him right now, Victor. You are not, and that’s the end of it. He had no way of knowing you were going to show up.”
“Did you hear what he said? My God, he said that before he saw me and then acted as if nothing had happened! And what was Ian trying to do? Use my phone to call someone in the middle of a club? He was trying to delete the message!”
Oh, crap.
“Good … morning,” I say from the bedroom door, putting an immediate end to their discussion. Sandra looks at me with the expression of a lawyer who has tried all possible arguments for the defense but knows the cause is lost. “Did you sleep well?”
Neither of them says a word. My throat goes even drier.
“I don’t know,” Victor says. “I might have been sleeping too selfishly.”
“Victor …” Sandra tries to steer away from the argument. “He’s hungover. Don’t do this now.”
“No,” I say as I walk into the kitchen. I pour myself some water and gulp it down quickly. “It’s best if we do it now. Can we talk, Victor? Sandra, you can grab whatever you want from the fridge. And do your parents know you’re here?” I ask Victor.
“I told them we stayed over at my brother’s,” Sandra answers on his behalf. “No need to worry about that.”
“Great.” I get more water and walk back to the bedroom door. “Shall we?”
Victor doesn’t seem willing to talk, but Sandra gives him an encouraging wave, and he gets up from the couch. We go to the bedroom, and I close the door as soon as Victor walks by me.
“Is this the part where you apologize and tell me you didn’t mean any of it and it was all the booze talking?” he asks, folding his arms in a defensive pose, then sitting on the bed with his legs crossed. “Because that’s not gonna fly.”
I place the glass of water on the desk, open the closet, and take out my morning medication. I pop the pill in my mouth and drink the second glassful.
“What is that?” he asks.
“It’s my regular dose,” I reply, trying to make the move seem as nondramatic as possible.
He laughs dryly. “Are you trying to calm me down?”
“I’ve done this every morning for the past three years, Victor. It’s my daily routine.”
I watch his green eyes stare at me, trying to process my routine and what it means. But the truth is, it doesn’t mean anything other than what I just said: It’s my daily routine.
“Well …?” He lets the question hang in the air. “When does the ‘I’m so sorry for what I said’ speech start?”
I shrug. “I’m not sure I should apologize for what I said.”
Another dry laugh. “You’re pathetic.”
“Is that what you really think?”
“Yes.”
I remain silent, looking at him.
“Okay,” I say.
“That’s it?” He seems furious. “Your big apology is an okay?”
“I can’t control how you feel or tell you that it’s wrong, Victor. So, yeah, okay. I might be pathetic, but I don’t regret anything I said in that message. That wasn’t the booze talking. That was me, saying exactly what I think about everything that’s going on between us. And if you’re not capable of seeing that I am entitled to my feelings as well, things will never work out between us.”
“Things will only work out between us if you start trusting other people, and it looks like you still don’t.”
“And can you blame me for that? I’ve trusted others before, believed that maybe it would all work out, but things have never ended well. And after so long trying to be optimistic, you can’t help but get tired of it.”
“So you don’t believe me? You still don’t believe that I really like you?”
“Of course I do! But not until last night, not until after all that silence. But, unlike everyone else, you came back.”
“So you said all those things?”
“I said all those things,” I confirm. “Can you ever understand?”
“I’m not sure I can. The things you said, they were …”
He seems uncertain about the proper adjectives, so I offer: “Cruel? Cold? Inconsiderate?”
His jaw tightens. “Exactly.”
“Maybe now you’ll understand how I feel every single day when someone disappears because they’re too scared to be with me.”
“You said I was scared. And selfish.” More than angry, Victor seems hurt by my words. “How can you say all those things and then stand by my side as if you hadn’t?”
“I stood by you because I enjoyed it. Because you surprised me by being different from all the other guys who have come and gone. What you can’t understand, Victor, is that all this is new for me, too. Be
ing with someone who knows who I am and still shows up, even with all the fear of what might happen in the future. This is different from what I’ve experienced in the last few years, when everyone just turned their backs and walked away.”
“And what you can’t seem to understand is that people have the right to be afraid. They have the right to not want to show up if they think that’s what’s best for them.”
“There you go. That’s exactly what I’m talking about. You’re being selfish again.”
“And you think you’re so much better than everyone else, yeah? So superior with your ‘I don’t care, I don’t apologize, I said exactly what I wanted to say.’ So why the fuck did you try to get Ian to delete the message you sent? Or did you think I wouldn’t realize what was going on?”
“Because I wanted to avoid … this!” I say, waving my hands about. “This pointless argument about who’s more fragile and who’s more selfish. But you know what? Now I’m happy that you listened to it.”
“Happy? You’re sick.”
“I’m happy because now you know what I think every time someone new comes into my life and disappears like a fucking cloud of smoke. It’s been three years of living with this fatigue, Victor. Three years of trying to convince myself that it’s better to be alone than to face this kind of reaction and the silence that follows every time I mention those three magic letters. It’s easy for you to turn around and walk away, but I still have to live with it every day.”
“But you can’t ignore the fact that people are scared!”
“I know! You think I wasn’t terrified when I got my results? You think I didn’t spend a whole week thinking this was a punishment from God, and that I deserved it? Scared is my middle name, Victor, but one thing I learned over these years is that fear is not a fifty-foot-tall monster I have to bow to. I’m afraid every single day: afraid my undetectable status will change; afraid that some political shit will happen and the meds will stop being distributed; afraid I’ll have a cut inside my mouth and kiss someone who also has a cut inside their mouth; afraid that I’ll tell someone I have HIV and that person will simply disappear, like I thought you were going to—like you did.”