I don’t want my parents organizing their world around me. I’m going to disappoint them someday. And then what?
The truth is, Ari, I miss El Paso. When we first moved there, I hated it. But now I think about El Paso all the time.
And I think of you.
Always,
Dante
P.S. I go swimming almost every day after school. I cut my hair. It’s really short. But short hair is good for swimming. Long hair sucks when you swim every day. Don’t know why I ever had it long.
Dear Ari,
Everyone has parties around here. My dad thinks it’s great that I get invited. My mom, well, it’s hard to guess what she thinks. I can tell she has her eyes open. She told me my clothes smelled like cigarettes after the last party. “Some people smoke,” I said. “Can’t help that.” I got the look.
So Friday night, I went to this party. And, of course, there was alcohol. I had a beer and have now decided that beer is not for me. I did like the vodka and orange juice. Ari, there were so many people there. Amazing. We were like roaches! You couldn’t move without bumping into someone. So, I just walked around talking to people and I was having a good time.
Somehow, I found myself talking to this girl. Her name is Emma and she’s smart and nice and beautiful. We were in the kitchen talking and she said she loved my name. And all of a sudden, she leans into me and kisses me. I guess you could say I kissed her back. She tasted like mint and cigarettes and it was, well, Ari, it was nice.
We kissed a long time.
I smoked a cigarette with her and we kissed some more.
She liked touching my face. She told me I was beautiful. No one has ever told me I was beautiful. Moms and dads do not count.
And then we went outside.
She smoked another cigarette. She asked me if I wanted one. I told her one was enough because I was a swimmer.
I’m still thinking about that kiss.
She gave me her number.
I’m not sure about all this.
Your friend,
Dante
Nine
I TRIED TO PICTURE DANTE WITH SHORT HAIR. I TRIED to imagine him kissing a girl. Dante was complicated. Gina would have liked Dante. Not that I was ever going to introduce them.
I lay in bed and thought about writing back to him. Instead, I sat down to write in my journal.
What would it be like to kiss a girl? Specifically, Ileana. She wouldn’t taste like cigarettes. What does a girl taste like when you kiss her?
I stopped writing and tried to think of something else. I thought about the stupid essay on the Great Depression that I didn’t want to write. I thought about Charlie Escobedo who wanted me to do drugs with him. I started to think about Dante kissing a girl again and then I thought about Ileana. Maybe she would taste like cigarettes. Maybe she smoked. I didn’t know a damn thing about her.
I sat up on my bed. No, no, no. No thinking about kissing. And then I don’t know why, but I felt sad. And then I started thinking about my brother. Every time I felt sad, I thought about him.
Maybe deep down a part of me was always thinking about him. Sometimes, I caught myself spelling out his name. B-E-R-N-A-R-D-O. What was my brain doing, spelling out his name without my permission?
I sometimes think that I don’t let myself know what I’m really thinking about. That doesn’t make much sense but it makes sense to me. I have this idea that the reason we have dreams is that we’re thinking about things that we don’t know we’re thinking about—and those things, well, they sneak out of us in our dreams. Maybe we’re like tires with too much air in them. The air has to leak out. That’s what dreams are.
And now that I think about it, I’d had a dream about my brother. I was four and he was fifteen and we were taking a walk. He was holding my hand and I was looking up at him. I was happy. It was a beautiful dream. The sky was blue and clear and pure.
Maybe the dream came from a memory. Dreams don’t come from nowhere. That’s a fact. I think maybe I want to study dreams when I’m old enough to actually choose what I want to study. I sure as hell don’t want to study Alexander Hamilton. Yeah, maybe I’ll study dreams and where they come from. Freud. Maybe that’s what I’ll do—I’ll write a paper on Sigmund Freud. That way, I’ll get a head start.
And maybe I’ll help people out who have bad dreams. So they won’t have them anymore. I think I’d like to do that.
Ten
I’VE DECIDED THAT I’M GOING TO FIND A WAY TO KISS Ileana Tellez. But when? Where? She’s not in any of my classes. I hardly see her.
Find her locker. That’s the plan.
Eleven
ON THE WAY BACK FROM THE DOCTOR’S OFFICE, MY mom asked me if I’d written back to Dante.
“Not yet.”
“I think you should write to him.”
“Mom, I’m your son, not a suggestion box.”
She shot me a look.
“Keep your eyes on the road,” I said.
When I got back home, I took out my journal and this is what I wrote:
If dreams don’t come from nowhere, then what does it mean that I ran over Dante in my dream? What does it mean that I had that dream again? Both times I was staring at Ileana when I ran over Dante. Okay, this is not good.
The air is leaking out.
I don’t want to think about this.
I can either think about the dreams I have about my brother or I can think about the dreams I have about Dante.
Those are my choices?
I think I should get a life.
Twelve
WHEN I THINK ABOUT THE DREAM ABOUT MY BROTHER, I think about the fact that the last time I saw him was when I was four. So there is a direct connection between the dream and my life. I suppose that’s when it all happened. I was four and he was fifteen. That’s when he did whatever he did. So now he’s in jail. Not jail. Prison. There’s a difference. My uncle, he gets drunk sometimes and winds up in jail. That really upsets my mom. But he gets out quick because he doesn’t drive when he drinks—he just winds up in stupid places and he gets a little belligerent with people. If the word belligerent hadn’t been invented, it would have been invented for my uncle when he drinks. But someone always bails him out. In prison, there’s no such thing as bailing someone out. You don’t get out quick. Prison is a place you get put away for a long time.
So that’s where my brother is. Prison.
I don’t know if he’s in a federal prison or a state prison. I don’t know why a guy gets sent to one or the other. It’s not something they teach us at school.
I am going to find out why my brother is in prison. It’s a research project. I’ve thought about it. I’ve thought and thought about it. Newspapers. Don’t they save old newspapers somewhere?
If Dante were here, he could help me. He’s smart. He’d know exactly what to do.
I don’t need Dante.
I can do this on my own.
Thirteen
DEAR ARI,
I hope you got my letters. Okay, that’s a disingenuous start. Of course you got my letters. I’m not going to analyze why you haven’t written back. Okay, that’s not totally true. I have analyzed why there’s no letter waiting for me when I get back from swimming. I won’t waste good paper on theories that I come up with when I can’t sleep at night. This is the deal, Ari, I’m not going to get on your case about writing back. I promise. If I want to write you, then I’ll write to you. And if you don’t want to write to me, you don’t have to. You have to be who you are. And I have to be who I am. That’s the way it is. And anyway, I usually did most of the talking.
I have another favorite thing to do besides riding the El: going to the Art Institute of Chicago. Wow, Ari. You should see the art in that place. It’s amazing. I wish you were here and we could see all this art together. You’d go nuts. I swear you would. All kinds of art, contemporary and not-so-contemporary and, well, I could go and on, but I won’t. Do you like Andy Warhol?
There is a
famous painting, Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. I am in love with that painting. Sometimes, I think everyone is like the people in that painting, everyone lost in their own private universes of pain or sorrow or guilt, everyone remote and unknowable. The painting reminds me of you. It breaks my heart.
But Nighthawks isn’t my favorite painting. Not by a long shot. Did I ever tell you what my favorite painting is? It’s The Raft of the Medusa by Géricault. There’s a whole story behind that painting. It’s based on a true story about a shipwreck and it made Géricault famous. See the thing about artists is that they tell stories. I mean, some paintings are like novels.
Someday, I’m going to travel to Paris and go to the Louvre and stare at that painting all day long.
I’ve done the math and I know that by now your casts are off. I know you said that the rule was that we couldn’t talk about the accident. I’m going to say this, Ari. That’s an incredibly inane rule. No reasonable person could be expected to keep that rule—not that I qualify as a reasonable person. So, I hope that your therapy is going well and that you’re normal again. Not that you’re normal. You are definitely not normal.
I miss you. Can I say that? Or is there a rule? You know, it’s interesting that you have so many rules for things. Why is that, Ari? I suppose everyone has rules for things. Maybe we get that from our parents. Parents are rule givers. Maybe they gave us too many rules, Ari. Did you ever think about that?
I think we need to do something about rules.
I’m not going to tell you that I miss you anymore.
Your friend,
Dante
Fourteen
I FOUND ILEANA’S LOCKER WITH THE HELP OF SUSIE Byrd. “Don’t tell Gina about this.”
“I won’t,” she said. “I promise.” She promptly broke her promise.
“She’s trouble,” Gina said.
“Yeah, and she’s eighteen,” Susie said.
“So?”
“You’re just a boy. She’s a woman.”
“Trouble,” Gina repeated.
I left Ileana a note. “Hi,” it said. I signed my name. I’m such a jerk. Hi. What’s that?
Fifteen
I SPENT THE EVENING AT THE PUBLIC LIBRARY LOOKING at microfilms of the El Paso Times. I was looking for an article on my brother. But I didn’t even know if I had the right year and I gave up after about an hour and a half. There had to be a better way of doing this kind of research.
I thought of writing Dante a letter. Instead, I found an art book on the work of Edward Hopper. Dante was right about Nighthawks. It was a great painting. And it was true, what Hopper was saying. I felt as if I were looking in a mirror. But it didn’t break my heart.
Sixteen
DO YOU KNOW WHAT DEAD SKIN LOOKS LIKE WHEN they take off a cast?
That was my life, all that dead skin.
It was strange to feel like the Ari I used to be. Except that wasn’t totally true. The Ari I used to be didn’t exist anymore.
And the Ari I was becoming? He didn’t exist yet.
I came home and took a walk.
I found myself staring at the spot where I’d seen Dante holding the bird. I don’t know why I was there.
I found myself walking in front of Dante’s house.
There was a dog across the street at the park staring at me.
I stared back.
He plopped himself on the grass.
I walked across the street and the dog didn’t move. He just wagged his tail. That made me smile. I sat down on the grass next to him and took off my shoes. The dog scooted himself up to me and put his head on my lap.
I just sat there and petted him. I noticed he didn’t have a collar. After studying him some more, I discovered that he was a she.
“What’s your name?”
People talk to dogs. Not that they understand. But maybe they understand enough. I thought of Dante’s last letter. I’d had to look up the word inane. I got up and walked to the library, which was at the edge of the park.
I found an art book that had a picture of the “Raft of the Medusa.”
I went home: Ari, the boy who could walk again without the help of crutches. I wanted to tell Dante that his math had been a little off. I got them off today, Dante. Today.
On my walk home, I thought about the accident and Dante and my brother and I wondered if he knew how to swim. I thought about my dad and how he never talked about Vietnam. Even though he had a picture with some of his war buddies hanging on the living room wall, he never talked about that picture or the names of his friends. I asked him once and it was as if he hadn’t heard the question. I never asked again. Maybe the problem between me and my father was that we were both the same.
When I got home, I noticed the dog had followed me. I sat on the steps of the front porch and she laid down on the sidewalk looking up at me.
My dad came out. “Getting your legs back?”
“Yeah,” I said.
He looked at the dog.
“She followed me home from the park.”
“Are you interested in him?”
“It’s a she.”
We were both smiling.
“And yeah,” I said. “I’m very interested.”
“Remember Charlie?”
“Yeah. I loved that dog.”
“Me too.”
“I cried when she died.”
“Me too, Ari.” We looked at each other. “Seems like a nice dog. No collar?”
“No collar, Dad. Beautiful.”
“Beautiful, Ari.” He laughed. “Your mother doesn’t like dogs in the house.”
Seventeen
DEAR DANTE,
Sorry I haven’t written. I really am.
I can walk like normal now. Just so you won’t feel guilty anymore, okay? The x-rays look good. I’ve healed, Dante. The doctor says a lot of things could have gone wrong, beginning with the surgery. But, as it happens, nothing went wrong. Imagine, Dante, nothing going wrong. Okay, I’ve broken my own rule so that’s enough about that particular topic.
I have a new dog! Her name is Legs because I found her the day I got my legs back. She followed me home from the park. My dad and I bathed her in the backyard. She’s really a great dog. She just stood there and let us bathe her. Really tame and mellow dog. I don’t know exactly what kind she is. The vet’s best guess was that she’s part pit bull, part Labrador and part God-knows-what-else. She’s white, medium-sized, and has brown circles around her eyes. Really good-looking dog. My mom’s only response was: “The dog stays in the yard.”
That rule didn’t last. At night, I let the dog into my bedroom. The dog sleeps at my feet. On the bed. Mom hates that. She gave in pretty easily though. “Well, at least you have a friend,” she said.
My mom doesn’t think I have any friends. That’s sort of true. But I’m not good at making friends. I’m okay with that.
Not much to report other than the dog. No, wait, guess what? I got a 1957 Chevy pickup for my birthday! Lots of chrome. I love the truck. A real Mexican truck, Dante! All I need are hydraulics to bounce around in. Like that’s going to happen. Hydraulics. My mom just looked at me. “Who’s going to pay for it?”
“I’ll get a job,” I said.
Dad gave me my first driving lesson. We went out on some deserted farm road in the upper valley. I did pretty well. I have to get the gear thing down. I’m not very smooth about shifting and I killed the truck a couple of times trying to shift into second. It’s all timing. Push in the clutch, shift, gas, clutch, shift, gas, drive. Someday soon I’m going to learn to do all of those things in one smooth motion. It will be like walking. I won’t even have to think about it.
After the first lesson, we parked the truck and my dad smoked a cigarette. He smokes sometimes. But never in the house. Sometimes, he smokes in the backyard, but not very often. I asked him if he was ever going to quit. “It helps with the dreams.” I know his dreams are about the war. I sometimes try to picture him in the jungles of Vietnam. I n
ever ask him anything about the war. I guess it’s something he has to keep to himself. Maybe it’s a terrible thing, to keep a war to yourself. But maybe that’s the way it has to be. So, instead of asking him about the war, I asked him if he ever dreamed about Bernardo. My brother. “Sometimes.” That’s all he said. He drove my truck back home and didn’t say another word.
I think I upset him by bringing up my brother. I don’t want to upset him, but I do. I always upset him. And other people too. I guess that’s what I do. And I upset you too. I know that. And I’m sorry. I’m doing the best I can, okay? So if I don’t write as many letters as you do, don’t be upset. I’m not doing it to upset you, okay? This is my problem. I want other people to tell me how they feel. But I’m not so sure I want to return the favor.
I think I’ll go sit in my truck and think about that.
Ari
Eighteen
THIS IS THE LIST OF WHAT MY LIFE IS NOW:
-studying to get my driver’s license and studying hard to get into college. (This makes my mom happy.)
-lifting weights in the basement.