Where We Go From Here

by Lucas Rocha

  Ian arrives a little later, already wearing some old outfit, a backpack with a change of clothes, and a wonderful scent of cologne. He attracts the girls’ attention with his arms exposed in a sleeveless shirt and a pair of tight jean shorts that look like they haven’t been worn in a few years. He smiles when the comments start, but he doesn’t pay much attention, focusing instead on the details of what we’re about to do.

  “You realize the police might arrive at any moment, right?” Ian asks, crouched next to Eric, helping him with the balloons, careful not to pop them and make the living room an even bigger mess. Ian and Eric delicately separate the balloons into different bags, and when they’re done, Eric gets a towel for Ian to clean his hands so he can get changed into something more presentable.

  “Then we just run,” Eric informs us after he washes his hands, sitting on a free chair in front of the mirror and starting a complex makeup procedure.

  “In those heels?” Sandra looks at the girls’ shoes, scattered all over the floor, and none of them is shorter than four inches. Nicolle Lopez grabs Sandra’s chin and pulls it up, telling her to close her eyes so she can finish the Amy Winehouse look.

  “We practice every weekend, running away from assholes downtown, my dear,” Mad Madonna says, zipping up her red thigh-high boots, Kinky Boots–style, and arranges her blond wig to make it look as real as possible. “Don’t you go around thinking anyone can catch us that easy.”

  Sandra thinks about saying something back, but when she sees Mad Madonna get up so easily, she realizes they know what they’re talking about.

  “There you go!” Nicolle says, giving Sandra a pat on the shoulder.

  Sandra opens her eyes and looks at herself in the mirror, astounded. Her eyes seem bigger from the eyeliner, and her eyelids are covered in a green shadow that make her look like Poison Ivy.

  “You are really great at this!” Sandra pulls out her phone and starts taking dozens of selfies. “One of these is definitely going to be my new profile pic.”

  Eric, now transformed into Bibi Montenegro with a violet leotard, an Afro wig with the tips dyed blond, and makeup that highlights her black skin, claps and calls everyone’s attention. “Ladies! Is everyone ready?”

  “Take it easy, Bibi!” Kara Parker yells, still in the process of gluing on her blue eyelash extensions.

  “Speed it up, dammit!” Bibi says, then looks around and smiles. “First of all, thanks to all the girls who canceled their plans at the last minute to stick up for our friend Henrique. This guy is my little brother, maybe even the most important person in my life, and to see what happened to him, to feel my blood boil, it just made me more certain that I’ve loved him since the day we first started this crazy friendship.”

  I see Henrique’s eyes are shimmering with Eric’s sudden display of affection.

  “You know what this calls for?” Henrique gets off the couch suddenly and runs to the kitchen. In less than a minute, he comes back with a bunch of plastic cups in one hand and a half-full gallon of wine in the other.

  “The two of you have a bizarre tradition of toasting important moments with horrible drinks,” Kara Parker mumbles, taking a cup from Henrique’s hand. “Come on, pour it before I regret it!”

  Henrique passes out the cheap wine, and Bibi raises her glass.

  “A toast to Henrique!” she shouts.

  “To Henrique!” they all echo in unison, downing the wine.

  It’s official: Operation Rainbow is a go.

  WE CALL THE TAXI COMPANY that always drives us to the nightclubs, and they seem surprised when we order three cars. The operator asks if she heard right, and when I say yes, the only reason she doesn’t hang up on me is because I’m a regular, so she knows it’s not a prank.

  The cars arrive in less than ten minutes, parking in single file in front of our building. We’re already waiting downstairs, drawing attention from every passerby: four drag queens with rainbow-colored clothes, three boys, and a girl carrying plastic bags full of heavy balloons that are firmly tied up so they won’t burst, as well as a speaker big enough that it takes as much space as another passenger.

  The taxis form a caravan to a quiet and peaceful street in Copacabana that still has some houses that haven’t been replaced by skyscrapers. Trees ornament both sides of the street, and the lampposts provide plenty of light. Perfect. The more people who can see us, the better.

  It’s almost eleven o’clock at night and there isn’t a lot of activity here, but some people still stare in curiosity when the taxis pull up in the quiet neighborhood and all these people in every color of the rainbow get out. We ask the drivers to leave because we don’t want them to end up in trouble in case anything goes wrong. But after hearing what we’re about to do and why, the three drivers refuse to leave and say they’ll wait for us on the next block and that if anything happens we should just run and they’ll be there. They’ve all driven us plenty of times over the years, and they know we’re not vandals but protesters.

  As people walk by and turn their heads to check us out, we get organized.

  “Where’s his place?” Bibi asks, looking around.

  I point to the left of the street and we all cross, facing the pristine wall surrounding Carlos’s house. An electrified barrier tops the concrete wall, and there are no signs of graffiti or even a line drawn by a kid passing by on his way home from school. Sandra crouches down to untie the bags and, as if she were handling grenades, passes the paint-filled balloons to each of the ladies.

  “Who wants to go first?” Sandra asks.

  Bibi positions herself and gestures to Victor, who hits play on the speaker. It has enough battery to keep playing for at least an hour, and the first mad guitar chords of the Cazuza song “O Tempo Não Para” start booming.

  And when the lights in the houses around us start turning on and curious heads appear at the windows, Bibi throws the first balloon at the wall around Carlos’s house, and it explodes in an intense shade of green that sprinkles all over the concrete.

  Everyone claps and shouts, calling even more attention to ourselves.

  While Cazuza sings that he’s shooting against the sun, that he’s strong and haphazard, Mad Madonna throws a balloon that explodes in a shade of violet; when he sings that he’s tired of running in the opposite direction without a podium finish or the kiss of a girlfriend, Kara Parker throws a balloon that bursts orange; when he sings that the dice are still being cast because time doesn’t stop, Nicolle Lopez throws a balloon that explodes in yellow; when he sings that every other day he survives without a scratch, Ian is the one who grabs a balloon and throws it, and it explodes in blue; when the pool is full of rats and the ideas don’t correspond to facts, Victor grabs the second to last and throws it, and it explodes in indigo; and when, at last, Cazuza sings that he keeps seeing the future repeating the past and that he sees a museum full of novelties, I throw the last balloon, which explodes in a shade of red.

  Time doesn’t stop, and everyone is yelling at us from their windows, wondering what’s going on, telling us to turn off the music. We see the lights in the house behind the wall turn on.

  “Would you like to do the honors before we run away?” Bibi asks, handing me a can of black spray paint. I take the can and shake it, feeling the ink mix inside the container.

  I’ve never spray-painted anything before, but it’s easy. The black ink that comes out doesn’t mix with the paint that’s running down the wall in an explosion of colors.

  I write out the words, and we scramble to take a photo. I ask Sandra, Victor, and Ian not to be in it, because the photo will go online and I don’t know how that would affect their lives, and unwillingly the three of them agree. Thanks to Victor’s background in film and the camera that Eric got from one of the photographers who covers nightlife in Rio, all we need is one click to get the perfect shot: All four drag queens, wearing the colors of the rainbow, and me, in a white T-shirt with a red ribbon, smiling by the words I spray-painted on the
wall:

  +

  Henrique Andrade shared a photo

  2 HOURS AGO

  So, as you can see in the photo above, this happened: A few friends and I decided to take matters into our own graffiti hands and solve a little issue that happened to me this past week. Let me explain. Maybe you know, or maybe you don’t, but the owner of this wall exposed my HIV-positive status online without my permission, which is not only a crime but also shows the character of someone who thinks he has the power to make me “regret” not bending to his wishes. His post went viral, and I received thousands of comments, both positive and negative, from well-intentioned people and from some who think they can point a finger and judge others without even knowing them. And that judgment even manifested as graffiti right outside my house, with words that weren’t exactly as positive or colorful as mine.

  I’ve decided to pay him back in kind, and the result is the explosion of color you see here.

  Here’s what I need to tell the owner of the wall in this picture: I am fine, Carlos. For real. I have absolutely no regrets—not even for the time I said I didn’t want anything to do with you anymore, ever since the day you decided to disappear. As you’ve already noticed, all our actions have consequences, and I wish all of them could be as beautiful as the unity represented in this photo, or as colorful as the people who take me in day after day and love me no matter what happens. The consequence of your actions, to me, was that I realized there’s a network of people who love me as I am, who don’t judge me for my past, and who teach me, every day, to discover how beautiful and full of color my life can be.

  I hope these colors will help you to see how different human beings can be—that not all of them are cruel or willing to make you feel bad just for being who you are. There was a time when I felt bad, when I tried to blame other people, and when I questioned, daily, what had caused my life to take the course it did. But I learned, Carlos—in the passing days, and months, and years—that my life is far too important to be wasted with negative feelings, with ideas that only bring me down instead of up, with thoughts that only get in the way and are of no help. So I decided, way back when you disappeared from my life, that it wasn’t worth it, to suffer for inevitable things and that, instead, I had to focus on being the best version of myself. Today I understand that you were essential to that process.

  And for that, I thank you.

  3,658 likes

  2,200 comments

  Six months later

  GABRIEL AND DANIELA’S WEDDING IS beautiful. It was officiated by a five-foot-tall woman with a powerful voice that hypnotized everyone. It’s silly, but at first I was nervous to be chosen as Gabriel’s best man. But now the sweat running down my temples isn’t from nervousness but from all the activity in the venue, where everyone’s eating and drinking. I’m squeezed into a tux, and my parents are acting like two children, taking photos with their phones as if I were the one getting married. I pass around a tray with the groom’s tie to collect funds for their honeymoon (a very Brazilian wedding tradition), cutting off pieces of the tie and handing one to everyone who contributes. Toward the back, the DJ gets everyone dancing, and all the women are either in flip-flops or barefoot, tossing aside their high heels and perfect posture from the reception.

  I’ve never been as happy for two people as I am now. Gabriel is overjoyed, and I’m sure he made the world’s best impulsive decision when he asked Daniela to marry him. He’s already taken off his suit jacket, wearing only a button-down shirt, and the sleeves are rolled up and half the buttons are undone. He’s totally drunk, dancing next to his wife.

  Vanessa is also glowing, as she has been ever since she learned that she got into medical school. The only thing worrying her is that she’ll need to move to another city, and she wakes up in the middle of the night to make notes of items that she can’t forget to pack. Mom and Dad are proud and sad at the same time, but I’ll stay home for a few more years and make sure that their transition to empty nesters won’t be too painful for them.

  Ever since Henrique wrote the post, his story has taken a monumental turn. At first, it ended up in local online newspapers, and it all exploded from there. The story was picked up by newspapers (both national and international) and TV shows, and suddenly everyone was talking about it—teachers, YouTubers, film and TV producers, LGBTQ+ and HIV activists. Everyone wants a piece of him and his drag queen friends, who are now known as the Fabulous Four. They even did a series of ten performances around clubs in Rio de Janeiro before—just like every single pop group—they started fighting and broke up. Henrique proved Andy Warhol’s words true by getting his fifteen minutes of fame, but the dust settled as suddenly as it went up, and his life soon returned to normal.

  From what we’ve heard, Carlos’s parents were furious with Henrique and threatened to sue him, but when they learned that exposing someone’s HIV status publicly was a much more serious crime than vandalism—and what lovely, colorful vandalism it was!—the threats stopped and they just let it go. We learned that Carlos had gone back to New Zealand, though whether or not he did so willingly remains a mystery.

  Gosh, what else has happened since then? Oh, yeah—I’m undetectable! It happened much more quickly than I imagined it would, and now my doctor’s appointments are every four months, just to make sure everything is okay. My doctor is more concerned about a small rise in my triglyceride levels than with the HIV, which to me means I have absolutely nothing to complain about, except for the sacrifice of having to avoid fried food.

  “HERE’S FIFTY BUCKS!” I hear a voice yelling from behind me, and I turn around, holding Gabriel’s tie in shambles.

  “OPA!” Gustavo smiles and throws the bill on the tray, grabbing his piece of the tie.

  You didn’t think I’d forgotten about him, did you? We’re still getting to know each other, but things have been great between us. He got into the economics program, and now he comes to my house every month and kidnaps all my Hal Varian textbooks. My parents didn’t want him there at first, but time worked its magic, and he’s now sitting by my side at the table Gabriel picked for my family, holding my hand. Still not the ideal, but if my mom or dad minds, at least they don’t make the situation uncomfortable.

  I still haven’t told them about the HIV, and I know that, when the day comes, it will be a difficult conversation. I want to be ready for their reaction, but what I can say is that today I’m still not ready. Even if the people around me are the best support system a person could ask for, my parents’ opinions are still so important to me. And I know, deep inside, that their love is bigger than any bad news I could give them.

  I look away from my parents and catch Gustavo’s smile. I smile back.

  And, in this moment, I’m reminded of when we were alone for the first time. Of the oppressive silence in his bedroom. Of the thoughts swirling in my head: He’s going to kick me out when I tell him, he’ll say things will never work out between us, that he doesn’t want this, tell me to get away, block me from all forms of contact, and everything we’ve built will be completely destroyed because of this virus. I remember the posters that hung on his wall, kept there as a reminder of his younger teenage years—Paramore, Evanescence, Fall Out Boy, and My Chemical Romance; I think back to the mess on his desk, with fantasy novels scattered everywhere, none of them read because he said he’d bought them when he decided he liked fantasy, even though he’d never read a single book in the genre; pieces of paper with scribbled compositions, paired with books on music theory; a guitar behind the door that has never made it out of its leather case, from when he decided he’d be a musician; an umbrella that looked as if it’d been stolen from Mary Poppins, which he’s also never used because he’s weird and prefers to walk in the rain.

  I remember him kissing me, and that his body was warm, but I was hyperventilating.

  “Are you nervous?” he asked.

  “I am.”

  “You don’t have to be.”

  “I have to t
ell you something.” Then I backed away from him, got up from the bed, and sat down on his desk chair. “I’m HIV-positive.”

  He blinked, once, twice, three times, processing the information.

  “I have condoms,” he said with such simplicity that it scared me.

  This time I blinked once, twice, three times, processing the information.

  “You’re not running away? You’re not done with me?”

  “I like you, Ian. And I have condoms. Multiple.”

  So I smiled, and he smiled back, and it was never a problem again. He only asked if he could come to an appointment at the clinic, where he asked the doctor more questions than a mother with a newborn child who just got their first fever. He even got started on PrEP just to make sure he’s extra-protected against contracting HIV.

  We only talk about HIV when I want to talk about it or when he has a question.

  And we’ve been together ever since.

  And I’ve been happy ever since.

  I am not alone.

  Everything is all right.

  The idea to write Where We Go from Here came to me when I was working as a technical reviewer for a health periodical at the Oswaldo Cruz Foundation, an important government organization that, among other things, produces and distributes free antiretroviral medication for HIV in Brazil. My job basically required me to revise library references, but every once in a while, I found myself reading articles that piqued my interest. One of the articles I read talked about the perception Brazilians have of HIV, as well as the social impacts of those beliefs. What I read in these articles—that people believe HIV is a punishment from God, that it’s a virus that affects only the gay community, that one could contract the virus through saliva or sweat, and other misconceptions—made me realize that we haven’t come quite as far as we’d like to believe when it comes to social stigmas against HIV-positive people, whether in Brazil or around the world.