Where We Go From Here

by Lucas Rocha

  Message request from AIDS KILLS!!!:

  I TOLD YOU YOU WERE GOING TO REGRET IT.

  Carlos. I can’t believe he dared to expose me in this way. How could someone be so selfish? As if that weren’t enough, I’m immersed in a total black hole of toxic messages from people I don’t know, even though none of them will make a difference in my life. With every positive message, I get the feeling that the world might not be such an awful place; but I’m only human, and I end up focusing on the bad ones. Each one feels like a lit fuse crawling under my skin, burning slowly, and there is no way to put them out or make them stop.

  All of a sudden, my world is upside down. The shares keep multiplying like the heads of a Hydra as more people see my face and draw their own conclusions. Some accuse me of “stealthing,” a slang term for when someone goes around infecting other people on purpose; others tell me I need to let God into my heart; others tell me this is divine punishment for being gay, that it was never a question of if, but when. There’s just so much hate. So much unprovoked hatred for someone with whom these people have never exchanged a single word in their lives. It terrifies me, how much hate can accumulate and explode on a computer screen.

  “Stop it!” Eric rips the phone from my hand and locks the screen as soon as he catches me with my eyes fixed on it, my nervous fingers scrolling through the messages that never stop coming. “It’s not doing you any good.”

  “Denise called me into the office,” I answer. “She’s going to fire me.”

  “She can’t do that. If she did, she’d be committing a crime.”

  “She’s going to fire me,” I repeat. “And I’ll never get another job again. And I can’t even go back to living with my parents, because, according to my mom, I’m a degenerate who embarrasses her.”

  “Things will get better, Henrique,” Eric says. That old saying every out gay person tells those who have just come out, and that’s exactly how I feel—as if I’ve just come out one more fucking time. “You know it always gets worse before it gets better.”

  I sigh wearily, rubbing my face with my palms and trying to think clearly. “I just wish it would stop getting worse once and for all.”

  “What are you going to do about Carlos?” Eric asks, because it’s an unavoidable question. I don’t want to think about that bastard right now, but he’s to blame for this weird onslaught of hate.

  “I don’t know,” I answer, because that’s the truth. I’ve never been this confused in my entire life. I know I can sue him, gather all the evidence and witnesses and start a case with the help of one of the organizations that messaged me. Besides Humberto Fraga, three more got in touch, on top of five HIV-support activists. But the whole legal issue is the least of my worries. A lawsuit can drag on for years in court, and Carlos could just disappear again, since that’s his specialty. And even if I screw up his life, nothing will erase what I’m reading right now, the stream of judgment still piling up in my inbox. Nothing will assuage this perception I now have that our society is totally messed up. “Could we not talk about that asshole?”

  In any other situation, Eric would insist we needed to talk about Carlos. But something about the look on my face—despair, fear, weariness, annoyance—makes him change his mind, and he just nods.

  I check the clock and see it’s almost noon.

  “I need to get ready to go to the office.” I get up from the couch, then walk to Eric and put out my hand. “I need my phone.”

  “Want me to come with you?” he asks.

  “No. I need to be by myself.” I reach out, and he gives me a doubtful look.

  “I’ll only give it back if you swear you’ll stop reading those stupid comments.”

  “You got it.”

  He returns the phone, and I take it to the bathroom, and I play a Twisted Sister song as soon as I lock the door. I turn on the shower and sit on the toilet, still fully clothed, and keep reading the comments.

  I can’t stop myself.

  +

  The ad agency where I work isn’t too far from my apartment, which means I can take the bus or the subway. Since it’s a Saturday and there aren’t as many people as on weekdays, I choose the latter, taking refuge underground, my headphones in my ears, eyes on the floor. Strangely, I’m scared that the posts will go from hate propagated by fiber-optic cables into a real-life manifestation. What if someone recognizes me? What if someone stops me, beats me up, calls me names? It feels like there’s a bull’s-eye printed on my back, like I’m on one of those wanted posters that you see in cowboy movies:

  When I buy my subway ticket, I notice that the subway traffic is a little more intense than usual, and I’m reminded that college entrance exams are this weekend. I ignore the parents coming back from the testing centers, discussing the heat or how anxious their kids are, and I sit in a corner of the ice-cold car, willing the trip to end quickly.

  I get off the train and walk up the stairs, then walk to the building where my office is. I ignore the drowsy heat and how there seems to be no breeze this afternoon, as well as the street sellers offering knickknacks and men yelling, “Water! Soda! Beer!” as if they were selling tickets to paradise.

  I walk into the elevator of the building and start sweating. It’s impossible for me to convince myself that I should remain calm. My heart is beating fast, my palms are sticky, and my forehead is shiny with sweat. My body feels hot, the elevator is stuffy, and I’m sure I’m going to walk out of this place without the slightest clue how I’m going to pay my bills after I’m fired and the unemployment benefits have run out.

  Today there are only eight employees at the agency out of the fifteen who usually crowd the open-plan and computer-filled office space. When I open the door to the agency, everyone stares at me. They all know, but they immediately go back to their computer screens. They whisper among themselves and exchange looks, and I notice that the air suddenly gets heavier. I want to cry. I want to walk out of this place and disappear forever. I don’t want to have to face Denise and hear what she has to tell me. She’s going to fire me and there’s nothing I can do about it. She’ll find an excuse, pressure me into not reporting her—anything to keep her company clear of any scandal.

  “Henrique … is everything okay?” Alessandra, the receptionist, asks me. I’m sure she knows. Everyone already knows; they work for an ad agency, spend their whole days online. Of course they’ve seen the post!

  “No,” I answer dryly, which startles her, since I’m usually in a good mood or, when I don’t feel particularly patient, am at least very polite. “Is Denise in her office?”

  “Yes,” she answers, taking the phone and calling her office. She knows everyone is looking at me, watching me, judging me, avoiding me. “Denise? Henrique is here.” The receptionist nods, hangs up, and says I can go in.

  Jonas is tossing one of those antistress massage balls up and down as he waits for the computer to finish rendering a video. Livia is focused on drawing something on her tablet, staring at the screen as if any mistake made can’t be undone. In the back, I can see Denise behind the glass door of her office. She’s typing furiously on her computer, completely focused.

  As I walk by the desks toward my boss’s office, I can feel sidelong glances (They know, they’re shaking their heads, they’re turning around, they’re judging me), but everyone nods and smiles when I walk by, as if nothing has happened.

  “What are you doing here, Henrique?” asks Jonas, scratching his head.

  I shrug. “Denise wants to talk to me,” I say, not slowing down, staring straight at my boss on the other side of the glass door. She raises her eyes and looks at me, then makes a gesture for me to come in.

  I take a deep breath, knowing that a Saturday afternoon conversation can’t be a good thing.

  She’s about to fire me.

  “Henrique!” Denise is a thirtysomething-year-old with both arms covered in colorful tattoos, and she has an Afro with the tips dyed purple. Her red-rimmed glasses contrast with her
pink lipstick, and there’s a picture on her desk showing her hugging her five-year-old. “I’m sorry I texted you on a Saturday; I’m glad you saw it! Come over here, please.”

  I frown, going around her desk and wondering what her real intentions are. This is the moment she’ll show me the post from last night and, with a heavy voice, explain why she can’t have this kind of person at her company.

  When I look at her computer screen, I don’t see the post. Instead, it’s the last image I edited for a cosmetics company.

  “See this thing here?” she asks, pointing at the lips of two women, smiling side by side. “I sent it to the client and of course he requested a million changes, but the main one was the tone of the lipstick, because apparently they’re selling, like, two hundred hues of red, and of course they didn’t describe any of this in the contract for the ad. I would have asked Jonas to change the colors, but you’re the best man for the job, and we need to make it as natural as possible. And Jonas is swamped with the videos for the Christmas campaign of that client who keeps asking for everything at the last minute and then for changes until the very last second.” She takes a breath for the first time, as if she’s only now remembered that her lungs actually need oxygen. She looks at me as if she doesn’t pay me well enough to do this kind of thing. “You think you could get this fixed by three p.m., pretty please?”

  I check my watch and see it’s already one fifteen. If I start right away, I can do it.

  “S-sure,” I respond. “But what was the thing you wanted to talk about?”

  Could she have missed that my personal life has been exposed all over the internet?

  “Huh? This, obviously,” she answers with a shrug. “Why do you think I’d make you come here on a Saturday unless it had something to do with work?”

  I think about changing the subject, about giving her a tight smile and saying, “Okay, I’m gonna go fix the tones of the lipstick,” but I change my mind. If Denise hasn’t seen it yet, it’s only a matter of time until she does. If everyone at the agency hasn’t, and all the looks and whispers were just my wrong impression, it’s only a matter of time before they become a reality and things start getting complicated.

  “I thought you were going to bring up the post about me on Instagram,” I say truthfully. “I have HIV—which is not the same as having AIDS—and I also don’t go around giving it to other people. I’m on treatment, use condoms, and am undetectable.”

  I smile awkwardly, and when I look at her, she doesn’t look like she’s been caught by surprise. Denise straightens her glasses on her face, her shoulders raised by a long breath.

  And that’s when I realize she did see the post. Everyone at the agency has.

  “Your personal life has nothing to do with your work, Henrique,” she tells me. “As long as you fulfill your duties and continue to be the great employee you’ve always been, I have nothing to say to you about any post. But if you have any issues in the company, please do not hesitate to let me know,” she emphasizes. “I didn’t create this agency to propagate prejudice or discrimination. We already suffer enough discrimination out there.” She glances quickly at the photo with her son, and I know she’s talking about everything she went through when she decided to adopt him despite being single. “This is a safe space.”

  I feel as if an electric current has stopped running through my body. Yes, everyone knows, everyone has seen the post, everyone is aware that I’m positive. But Denise is ready to make sure nothing will get to me. I can’t go into the heads of any of my coworkers to find out what they’re thinking. I don’t know their prejudices, I don’t know how they see life or difference, but, in this moment, I feel welcome, as if the bad things outside can’t get me in here. My phone continues to vibrate with notifications, message requests from strangers, and texts, but I’m not thinking about those right now. Instead, I take my phone out of my pocket, press the off button, and walk to my desk, where I will edit an image and send it to the client in less than two hours.

  +

  I eat a flavorless burger at McDonald’s and walk back home at almost four p.m. After I edited the photo, Denise told me to check another dozen small jobs, and I didn’t say no to any of them because I knew that as long as I was immersed in those, it meant I didn’t have to think about the real world.

  But reality has this nasty habit of showing itself in the worst possible way, and that’s exactly what happens when I round the corner toward my apartment.

  Eric is turned to the wall, and I can see that there’s a bucket near his feet with water and soap, and he’s scrubbing the concrete with a cleaning brush. He turns around and sees me, and his expression changes from determined to sad in an instant, because he was there trying to protect me, to keep me from seeing the red spray paint on the wall:

  But Eric is not alone. Next to him, I can see two other guys with sponges helping out. I see Ian’s short hair and thick beard, gathering sweat, and Victor’s slender body and blue streak of hair. They turn around, too, as soon as they see Eric has stopped scrubbing, and the three of them stare at me as the foaming water trickles down the wall in red hues, silently dripping on their shoes.

  I walk toward them with a knot in my throat. I feel so much at the same time: sadness when I realize someone was capable of doing something this horrible; exhaustion with the thought that this might be just the beginning; dizziness because it’s so hot. But most of all, I feel a tightness in my chest—a good one—because I know I have people around who are willing to protect me.

  “I’m sorry, Henrique, I didn’t want you to—”

  Before Eric can finish, I grab the sponge from his hands and dunk it in the bucket, and with strong, constant strokes, I start washing off one of the words. Victor and Ian don’t say anything; they just keep scrubbing as they look at me. They smile. And I smile back.

  “Thank you” is all I can say before we go back to silence and pick up where they left off.

  EACH ONE OF THE SPRAY-PAINTED words on Henrique’s wall feels like it is directed at me.

  I feel a bitter taste in the back of my mouth when we’re finally done cleaning the whole thing. When I saw what they posted about Henrique, I got in touch with Victor immediately. He told me Eric had called and told him someone had spray-painted something on the wall of their building, and he was going downstairs to erase it before Henrique had a chance to see it. I didn’t think twice and offered to come along, and Victor gave me the address, telling me he’d be there in less than ten minutes.

  There’s still a pale pink shadow of the words on the concrete that will only be erased if someone gets a bucket of paint to cover it. Those words—still there even after all the soapy scrubbing—are a reminder that even if we try to erase what we don’t want to see, there will always be something to remind us that fear and prejudice still exist.

  “Thanks, guys,” Henrique mutters, wiping the sweat from his brow and throwing the sponge back into the bucket. He has a distant look, his eyelids are heavy, and his shoulders are hunched, as if he’s suddenly aged ten years in half an hour. He gives Victor a sideways look, and Victor smiles awkwardly but remains silent, staring at Henrique as if wanting to say something but not finding the courage to do it. “You want to come upstairs and grab something to drink?”

  “You don’t mind?” Victor asks, and I realize his shy words reveal something more than just a concern about invading Henrique’s personal space.

  Henrique smiles. “No.”

  We go upstairs, and Eric pours some iced tea into glasses before bringing them to us. We’re sustaining an unpleasant silence, the type in which everyone feels like talking but no one dares say a word. I want to ask Henrique how he’s doing, what he’s thinking about, and who could have done something like this to him, but the words get caught in my throat.

  As though he were reading my thoughts, Henrique says, “It’s okay, guys. Thanks for the help with the wall, but you must be tired. Feel free to go home.”

  “Nothing is oka
y.” That’s Eric, and his voice makes it obvious that he’s about to explode. “We need to do something, Henrique. He needs to pay for this.”

  “He?” I ask. “So you know who did it?”

  Henrique, seeming exhausted, sits on the armchair and takes a sip of his tea. “It was my ex.”

  And then he tells us, briefly, about the conversation he had with Carlos and the threat he made before leaving the apartment.

  Victor stares at him, his face a mask of uncontrollable rage. “That son of a bitch,” he says as soon as Henrique is done. “Why would he do this?”

  “Because I didn’t take him back. And he must think that this way, no one else will ever want me.”

  “You know that’s not true, Henrique,” Victor says as soon as he notices the grief in Henrique’s voice.

  “I’m so … tired of it all.” Henrique turns to Victor and looks at him, and I feel like this is not the best moment for Eric and me to be here, in this living room, watching the two of them stare at each other.

  I want to get up and leave, but I remain still, not knowing what to do. Henrique’s eyes are red again, but there are no tears. Just a weariness that seems to have been with him for many years and has finally shown itself. He lowers his head and sighs.

  “Do you want to be by yourself?” Victor asks.

  “No” is Henrique’s immediate answer, and he tries to form a smile.

  Victor gets up and walks to the armchair where Henrique is sitting. With a quick gesture, he brings Henrique’s head to one of his shoulders, caressing his red hair with the tips of his fingers.

  Henrique doesn’t cry, but he closes his eyes and allows his head to be stroked. While they sit in silence, I grab my phone and check Instagram.

  “The post was deleted,” I say, confirming that the content shared throughout the day is no longer available. “And the profile that posted it doesn’t exist anymore.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything,” Eric says. “We can still sue that asshole and make him pay for this.”