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This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Benjamin Alire Sáenz
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The text for this book is set in Berling.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Sáenz, Benjamin Alire.
Aristotle and Dante discover the secrets of the universe/
Benjamin Alire Sáenz.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: Fifteen-year-old Ari Mendoza is an angry loner with a brother in prison, but when he meets Dante and they become friends, Ari starts to ask questions about himself, his parents, and his family that he has never asked before.
ISBN 978-1-4424-0892-0 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4424-0894-4 (eBook)
[1. Coming of age—Fiction. 2. Families—Fiction.
3. Mexican-Americans—Fiction. 4. Friendship—Fiction.
5. Homosexuality—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.S1273Ar 2012
[Fic]—dc22
2010033649
To all the boys who’ve had to learn to play by different rules
Contents
The Different Rules of Summer
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Sparrows Falling from the Sky
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
The End of Summer
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Letters on a Page
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Remember the Rain
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
All the Secrets of the Universe
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Acknowledgments
WHY DO WE SMILE? WHY DO WE LAUGH? WHY DO we feel alone? Why are we sad and confused? Why do we read poetry? Why do we cry when we see a painting? Why is there a riot in the heart when we love? Why do we feel shame? What is that thing in the pit of your stomach called desire?
The Different Rules of Summer
The problem with my life was that it was someone else’s idea.
One
ONE SUMMER NIGHT I FELL ASLEEP, HOPING THE WORLD would be different when I woke. In the morning, when I opened my eyes, the world was the same. I threw off the sheets and lay there as the heat poured in through my open window.
My hand reached for the dial on the radio. “Alone” was playing. Crap, “Alone,” a song by a group called Heart. Not my favorite song. Not my favorite group. Not my favorite topic. “You don’t know how long . . .”
I was fifteen.
I was bored.
I was miserable.
As far as I was concerned, the sun could have melted the blue right off the sky. Then the sky could be as miserable as I was.
The DJ was saying annoying, obvious things like, “It’s summer! It’s hot out there!” And then he put on that retro Lone Ranger tune, something he liked to play every morning because he thought it was a hip way to wake up the world. “Hi-yo, Silver!” Who hired this guy? He was killing me. I think that as we listened to the William Tell Overture, we were supposed to be imagining the Lone Ranger and Tonto riding their horses through the desert. Maybe someone should have told that guy that we all weren’t ten-year-olds anymore. “Hi-yo, Silver!” Crap. The DJ’s voice was on the airwaves again: “Wake up, El Paso! It’s Monday, June fifteenth, 1987! 1987! Can you believe it? And a big ‘Happy Birthday’ goes out to Waylon Jennings, who’s fifty years old today!” Waylon Jennings? This was a rock station, dammit! But then he said something that hinted at the fact that he might have a brain. He told the story about how Waylon Jennings had survived the 1959 plane crash that killed Buddy Holly and Richie Valens. On that note, he put on the remake of “La Bamba” by Los Lobos.
“La Bamba.” I could cope with that.
I tapped my bare feet on the wood floor. As I nodded my head to the beat, I started wondering what had gone through Richie Valens’s head before the plane crashed into the unforgiving ground. Hey, Buddy!
The music’s over.
For the music to be over so soon. For the music to be over when it had just begun. That was really sad.
Two
I WALKED INTO THE KITCHEN. MY MOM WAS PREPARING lunch for a meeting with her Catholic-Church-lady friends. I poured myself a glass of orange juice.
My mom smiled at me. “Are you going to say good morning?”
“I’m thinking about it,” I said.
“Well, at least you dragged yourself out of bed.”
“I had to think about it for a long time.”
“What is it about boys and sleep?”
“We’re good at it.” That made her laugh. “Anyway, I wasn’t sleeping. I was listening to ‘La Bamba.’”
“Richie Valens,” she said, almost whispering. “So sad.”
“Just like your Patsy Cline.”
She nodded. Sometimes I caught her singing that song, “Crazy,” and I’d smile. And she’d smile. It was like we shared a secret. My mom, she had a nice voice. “Plane crashes,” my mother whispered. I think she was talking more to herself than to me.
“Maybe Richie Valens died young—but he did something. I mean, he really did something. Me? What have I done?”
“You have time,” she said. “There’s plenty of time.” The eternal optimist.
“Well, you have to become a person first,” I said.
She gave me a funny look.
“I’m fifteen.”
“I know how old you are.”
“Fifteen-year-olds don’t qualify as people.”
My mom laughed. She was a high school teacher. I knew she half agreed with me.
“So what’s the big meeting about?”
“We’re reorganizing the food bank.”
“Food bank?”
“Everyone should eat.”
My mom had a thing for the poor. She’d been there. She knew things about hunger that I’d never know.
“Yeah,” I said. “I guess so.”
“Maybe you can help us out?”
“Sure,” I said. I hated being volunteered. The problem with my life was that it was someone else’s idea.
“What are you going to do today?” It sounded like a challenge.
“I’m going to join a gang.”
“That’s not funny.”
“I’m Mexican. Isn’t that what we do?”
“Not funny.”
“Not funny,” I said. Okay, not funny.
I had the urge to leave the house. Not that I had anywhere to go.
When my mom had her Catholic-Church-lady friends over, I felt like I was suffocating. It wasn’t so much that all her friends were over fifty—that wasn’t it. And it wasn’t even all the comments about how I was turning into a man right before their eyes. I mean, I knew bullshit when I heard it. And as bullshit went, it was the nice, harmless, affectionate kind. I could handle them grabbing me by the shoulders and saying, “Let me look at you. Dejame ver. Ay que muchacho tan guapo. Te pareces a tu papa.” Not that there was anything to look at. It was just me. And yeah, yeah, I looked like my dad. I didn’t think that was such a great thing.
But what really bugged the living crap out of me was that my mother had more friends than I did. How sad was that?
I decided to go swimming at the Memorial Park pool. It was a small idea. But at least the idea was mine.
As I was walking out the door, my mom took the old towel I’d slung over my shoulder and exchanged it for a better one. There were certain towel rules that existed in my mother’s world that I just didn’t get. But the rules didn’t stop at towels.
She looked at my T-shirt.
I knew a look of disapproval when I saw one. Before she made me change, I gave her one of my own looks. “It’s my favorite T-shirt,” I said.
“Didn’t you wear that yesterday?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s Carlos Santana.”
“I know who it is,” she said.
“Dad gave it to me on my birthday.”
“As I recall you didn’t seem all that thrilled when you opened your father’s gift.”
“I was hoping for something else.”
“Something else?”
“I don’t know. Something else. A T-shirt for my birthday?” I looked at my Mom. “I guess I just don’t understand him.”
“He’s not that complicated, Ari.”
“He doesn’t talk.”
“Sometimes when people talk, they don’t always tell the truth.”
“Guess so,” I said. “Anyway, I’m really into this T-shirt now.”
“I can see that.” She was smiling.
I was smiling too. “Dad got it at his first concert.”
“I was there. I remember. It’s old and ratty.”
“I’m sentimental.”
“Sure you are.”
“Mom, it’s summer.”
“Yes,” she said, “it is summer.”
“Different rules,” I said.
“Different rules,” she repeated.
I loved the different rules of summer. My mother endured them.
She reached over and combed my hair with her fingers. “Promise me you won’t wear it tomorrow.”
“Okay,” I said. “I promise. But only if you promise not to put it in the dryer.”
“Maybe I’ll let you wash it yourself.” She smiled at me. “Don’t drown.”
I smiled back. “If I do, don’t give my dog away.”
The dog thing was a joke. We didn’t have one.
Mom, she got my sense of humor. I got hers. We were good that way. Not that she wasn’t something of a mystery. One thing that I completely got—I got why my father fell in love with her. Why she fell in love with my father was something I still couldn’t wrap my head around. Once, when I was about six or seven, I was really mad at my father because I wanted him to play with me and he just seemed so far away. It was like I wasn’t even there. I asked my mom with all my boyhood anger, “How could you have married that guy?”
She smiled and combed my hair with her fingers. That was always her thing. She looked straight into my eyes and said calmly, “Your father was beautiful.” She didn’t even hesitate.
I wanted to ask her what happened to all that beauty.
Three
WHEN I WALKED INTO THE HEAT OF THE DAY, EVEN THE lizards knew better than to be crawling around. Even the birds were laying low. The tarred patches on the cracks of the street were melting. The blue of the sky was pale and it occurred to me that maybe everybody had fled the city and its heat. Or maybe everyone had died like in one of those sci-fi flicks, and I was the last boy on earth. But just as that thought ran through my head, a pack of guys who lived in the neighborhood passed me on their bikes, making me wish I was the last boy on earth. They were laughing and messing around and they seemed like they were having a good time. One of the guys yelled at me, “Hey, Mendoza! Hanging out with all your friends?”
I waved, pretending to be a good sport, ha ha ha. And then I flipped them the bird.
One of the guys stopped, turned around and started circling me on his bike. “You want to do that again?” he said.
I gave him the bird again.
He stopped his bike right in front of me and tried to stare me down.
It wasn’t working. I knew who he was. His brother, Javier, had tried to mess with me once. I’d punched the guy. Enemies for life. I wasn’t sorry. Yeah, well, I had a temper. I admit it.
He put on his mean voice. Like it scared me. “Don’t screw with me, Mendoza.”
I gave him the bird again and pointed it at his face just like it was a gun. He just took off on his bike. There were a lot of things I was afraid of—but not guys like him.
Most guys didn’t screw with me. Not even guys who ran around in packs. They all passed me on their bikes again, yelling stuff. They were all thirteen and fourteen and messing with guys like me was just a game for them. As their voices faded, I started feeling sorry for myself.
Feeling sorry
for myself was an art. I think a part of me liked doing that. Maybe it had something to do with my birth order. You know, I think that was part of it. I didn’t like the fact that I was a pseudo only child. I didn’t know how else to think of myself. I was an only child without actually being one. That sucked.
My twin sisters were twelve years older. Twelve years was a lifetime. I swear it was. And they’d always made me feel like a baby or a toy or a project or a pet. I’m really into dogs, but sometimes I got the feeling I was nothing more than the family mascot. That’s the Spanish word for a dog who’s the family pet. Mascoto. Mascot. Great. Ari, the family mascot.
And my brother, he was eleven years older. He was even less accessible to me than my sisters. I couldn’t even mention his name. Who the hell likes to talk about older brothers who are in prison? Not my mom and dad, that was for sure. Not my sisters either. Maybe all that silence about my brother did something to me. I think it did. Not talking can make a guy pretty lonely.
My parents were young and struggling when my sisters and brother were born. “Struggling” is my parents’ favorite word. Sometime after three children and trying to finish college, my father joined the Marines. Then he went off to war.
The war changed him.
I was born when he came home.
Sometimes I think my father has all these scars. On his heart. In his head. All over. It’s not such an easy thing to be the son of a man who’s been to war. When I was eight, I overheard my mother talking to my Aunt Ophelia on the phone. “I don’t think that the war will ever be over for him.” Later I asked my Aunt Ophelia if that was true. “Yes,” she said, “it’s true.”
“But why won’t the war leave my dad alone?”
“Because your father has a conscience,” she said.
“What happened to him in the war?”
“No one knows.”
“Why won’t he tell?”
“Because he can’t.”
So that’s the way it was. When I was eight, I didn’t know anything about war. I didn’t even know what a conscience was. All I knew is that sometimes my father was sad. I hated that he was sad. It made me sad too. I didn’t like sad.
So I was the son of a man who had Vietnam living inside him. Yeah, I had all kinds of tragic reasons for feeling sorry for myself. Being fifteen didn’t help. Sometimes I thought that being fifteen was the worst tragedy of all.