“Too bad we’re not old enough to buy Mr. V some nice wine.”
“Yeah, too bad.”
“Hey,” she said, “maybe we can get Marcos to take us wine shopping.”
“So you warming up to him—or what?”
“I’m just pragmatic. That guy should be good for something.”
I smiled. “Pragmatic. Remember you spelled that word in the spelling bee?”
“Why do you always have to remind me of that day?”
“Still mad?”
“I still give that creep evil looks when I run into him at school.”
“You know how to hold a grudge, don’t you?”
“It’s not always such a bad thing, you know. Keeps a lot of shitheads out of my life.”
She gave me a look because I was laughing.
“You’re laughing at me? Really?”
“What if?”
“What if?”
“Where did our What If game come from?” I don’t know. Maybe I just felt like playing. “It seems like we haven’t played in a long time.”
“Yeah, it does seem that way, doesn’t it?”
“What if,” I said.
“What if,” Sam said.
“What if I were a poet and you were a poet too?”
“If I were a poet, I would write a poem to—” She smiled. “Okay, I need some time with this one.”
I opened the front door to the school building.
“By the end of the day I’ll have mine ready,” she said.
“Me too,” I said.
“And don’t write it during math. You need to pay attention.”
“Bye,” I said.
“Bye,” she said.
“Great day,” I said.
“Great day,” she said.
And then I saw Enrique Infante walking in the other direction. “Faggot,” he said.
I gave him a cheesy smile. “You want I should bash your face in again?”
“Come at me, white boy.”
I almost turned around and went for him. But I kept walking. We were on school grounds. I actually let a thought come between me and my fist reflex.
During lunch, this is what I wrote in my notebook:
If I were a poet
I would write a poem
that would make people’s tongues
fall out every time they said
the word faggot.
I read what I’d written and was pretty proud of myself. But I knew Sam’s was going to be really good, and I wanted to remain competitive, so I thought a minute and then wrote:
If I were a poet
I would write a poem
so beautiful and moving
that it would cure
cancer, and cancer
would never enter
another human being
ever again.
Not ever.
And then I was into it, so I started to write another one:
If I were a poet
I would write a poem
that would make my dad’s heart
smile. And he would never
feel any sadness, and every day
he would wake
to the beauty of the day.
After school, we met at Sam’s locker. “You look smug,” she said.
“I don’t do smug.”
“Oh yeah, you’re all about smug right now. You think you wrote a really outta-this-world cool poem, don’t you?”
“Yup.”
“Yeah, well, we’ll see.” Then we cracked up laughing and decided to wait till we got home to read each other’s poems. I guess they were poems. What the hell did I know about poems? The only poem I really liked was this poem called “Autobiographia Literaria” by some guy named Frank O’Hara. I had it on my bulletin board at home. Sam liked to read it to me.
Sam kicked me as I walked. “Did you have a great day?”
“Yeah. We had a substitute in my English class. He didn’t give a rat’s tail about teaching, so Fito and I just texted each other.”
“What were you texting?”
“Fito’s situation at home seems to be getting worse.”
“Well, that’s no bueno.”
“No bueno is right. And then this morning my good friend Enrique Infante walked passed me in the hallway and called me a faggot.”
“He’s a sleaze bucket.”
“Yup. I told him that maybe I’d bash his face in again.”
“No bueno.”
“No bueno is right. But it really pisses me off that he also called me a white boy.”
“Uh-oh.” Sam started laughing.
“You’re supposed to be on my side.”
“But you are a white guy.”
“Really? We’re going to get into this discussion again? Really?”
She messed up my hair and smiled. “Just relax. No worries, Enrique will get his. Yup, that’s what I think.” I wondered if she was up to something. She had that look.
When we got home, I gave Sam my poems. She gave me hers. This is what she wrote:
If I were a poet
I would write a poem
that would make the oceans
clean again.
I would write a poem
so pure that it would rain for days
and when the skies were clear again,
a million stars would fill the summer night.
I would write a poem to make the people see
guns are guns and unworthy of our love.
I would write a poem to make
all the bullets disappear.
I looked at her. “Wow. Mine are kind of stupid compared to yours.”
She smiled at me. “Stupid boy. You’re incapable of stupidity.”
She got up from the couch and took her poem and mine. “I’m going to put them on the refrigerator. So your dad can read them.”
“Good girl,” I said. “He would like that.”
“Yup.”
So Sam took off some of the postcards that were on the refrigerator and replaced them with our poems. “We got to get some new magnets.” Sam was starting to get all domestic on me. Who knew?
Sam and I were studying in the living room. I looked up and saw my dad standing there. “So how are my budding poets?”
I kinda smiled at him. “Sam’s the better poet.”
My father had this incredible look on his face. “Sometimes I love you both so much that I can hardly bear it.” Then he turned around and walked toward the kitchen. “What do you want for dinner?”
“Tacos,” I said.
“Tacos it is.”
I looked at Sam and saw tears running down her face. “What?” I said.
“Your dad. He says things that make me cry.”
“Beautiful things,” I said.
“Yeah, beautiful. How come more guys aren’t like your dad?”
“I have no frickin’ idea.” And then I thought, Because most guys are like my bio father. I had no idea where that thought came from. I didn’t know a damn thing about my bio father.
Dad. Marcos.
I’D BECOME a chronic eavesdropper. That’s what I thought as I stood at the back door and watched my dad and Marcos having an argument in front of Dad’s studio.
My dad had this look on his face that said I am half angry and half hurt. And then I heard him saying: “Marcos, you can’t just walk back into my life as if nothing happened. You can’t just disappear one day and reappear a few years later and expect me to—” And then he stopped in midsentence.
“I said I was sorry, Vicente.”
“Cheapest word in the dictionary.”
“I was scared.”
“I was scared too, Marcos. But I didn’t walk away. You didn’t see me running, did you?”
“Everybody deserves a second chance. Even me. We, Vicente, you and I, we deserve a second chance.”
I watched my dad. He didn’t say anything.
Marcos said, “I know how much I hurt you.”
r /> “Yes, you did hurt me.”
“Vicente, not a day went by when I didn’t think of you.”
“It took you long enough.”
I saw the tears on Marcos’s face.
Right then I witnessed the world they lived in go completely silent. The world was flooding with their tears.
Marcos slowly walked away and left through the side gate.
I stepped away from the doorway and made my way back to my room.
Dad (Marcos) Me
AS I SAT in my room, part of me wanted to grab Marcos and punch his lights out. As if that would solve anything. Yeah, a big part of me wanted to hate him. For hurting my dad. But how could I hate him? I knew what I’d seen. Marcos, he loved my dad.
I’d seen the look on Dad’s face too. He loved Marcos back.
And I understood that the love they had wasn’t easy. And maybe they wouldn’t make it, you know, but they were trying, and I knew that. A part of me didn’t want that to happen, because, well, hell, it complicated everything, and everything was complicating everything and, you know, I used to think Sam was the most illogical person in the universe, and now I thought I was.
Me. Me? Who?
OKAY, TIME TO GET DOWN to writing my admissions letter. I made a list of things I should include that some bored person in the admissions office would read.
My father is gay.
I am adopted.
I used to know who I was, but now I don’t.
I’m nothing special.
My best friend, Samantha, is brilliant—but I am not.
I got a letter from a dead mother, and man, how many boys applying to your school have that?
I am a natural-born boxer.
My grandmother has taught me more than any teacher I’ve ever had in a classroom.
This is not working.
This is not working.
WFTD = Fists. Again?
SO AFTER SCHOOL, we were walking home. That familiar walk that had always been so calm and uneventful, walks that had been filled mostly with Sam’s words and her curiosity about the world. And now, on many of our walks back home from school, Fito joined us, and it was good. Yeah, we were calmly walking back home from school—Sam and me and Fito. Sam and Fito were talking about The Grapes of Wrath. It was Fito’s favorite book, a book I hadn’t read. Fito said I had to put it on my list. And I thought, Great, another list.
And then as we walked, we saw this group of guys that were taunting Angel, calling him faggot and queer and maricón. They were talking all kinds of shit, and they had him surrounded, and it looked like they were about to beat the holy crap out of him. I must have run toward them, though I don’t remember running. All I remember is that I had this guy by the collar and was shoving him against a chainlink fence. I was right in his face, and I was telling him, “I’m gonna kick your ass from here to Canada.”
And then I felt Sam’s hand on my shoulder. She kept saying, “Let him go. Let him go.”
I slowly let go, and he and his friends took off.
I was numbly staring into Sam’s eyes.
I looked over, and Fito said, “I’m gonna walk Angel home.”
I nodded.
Sam and I didn’t say a word as we started back home.
There were different kinds of silences between us. Sometimes the silences meant that we knew each other so well that we didn’t need words. Sometimes the silences meant that we were mad at each other.
And sometimes the silences meant that we didn’t know each other at all.
Sam. Grief. Sylvia. Mima.
I WAS IN BED, but I wasn’t tired, and I wasn’t sleepy. I kept turning the light off and on. I started reading The Grapes of Wrath, but put it down. It was too daunting and overwhelming. I turned off the light. I turned it on again. Sam texted me: U know there are five stages of grief.
Me: ?
Sam: Yup. Five stages
Me: Where do u get these things?
Sam: Counselor at school
Me: U went?
Sam: Last week. Been thinking
Me: Good for U
She walked into my room. She was wearing an extra-large El Paso Chihuahuas T-shirt that had an outline of the ears of a Chihuahua dog and said FEAR THE EARS. Stupid. She loved that T-shirt. I was lying in bed. “Five stages, huh?”
“That’s what the experts say.”
“So what?”
“You’re in the anger phase.”
“What?”
“Mima’s dying and you’re in the anger phase.”
“Well, you should know. You’re the expert on phases.”
She uncrossed her arms. She sat on my bed. “Yup, you’re definitely in the anger phase. Phase one equals denial, as in This is not happening.”
I gave her my best fuck-off look, but I knew she wasn’t going to stop.
“Are you listening, Sally Silva?”
“I have a choice here? I mean, you’re totally colonizing my space.”
“Colonizing. Good one.” She didn’t skip a beat. “Phase two equals anger, as in I am so pissed off at God or at whomever because I am not happy that this is happening. That would be you right now.”
“No, I’m not.”
“Did you know that you were cussing as we were running?”
“Was I?”
“And lately you’re quick on the draw—with your fists, I mean.” She gave me a snarky look.
I started to say something, but didn’t.
“Yup. Phase three equals bargaining, equals, in my case, If I am good for the rest of my life and never say the F word again, will you please bring my mother back, or, in your case, If I never have a bad thought about anybody ever again in my life, will you cure Mima of cancer?” She smiled at me. “I know what I’m talking about.”
I smiled back at her. There was a lot of snark in my smile.
“Phase four equals depression. Yeah, well, depression. Anger turned inward. Yup. And finally, phase five equals acceptance. See, a fucking happy ending. The thing is, the phases, they come and go and appear in different orders.”
“For how long?”
“How the hell should I know? The only phase I’ve completed is the denial one. I aced that test. The other stages, they’re all still clinging to me like bad boys who can’t take no for an answer. And stage five, well, that’s just a dream right now.”
Then she started crying. “I know it’s hard, Sally. But you’re in your head a lot these days, and I miss you. You know the denial phase? That phase has a partner. Isolation, baby.”
“Isolation?”
“Yeah, as in I don’t feel like talking anymore.”
“Well, I don’t feel like talking.”
“I’m trying to figure out if you’re in the isolating phase or the depression phase, because you can do two phases at once. But I never knew you to multitask.”
And then we both cracked up laughing, but we weren’t really laughing, we were crying.
And then I held her as she cried. “I miss Sylvia,” she whispered. “I really miss her.”
Running. On Empty. Fito.
SAM WOKE ME UP early to go running.
“Let’s skip a day,” I said.
“Get your ass out of bed. Move it.”
“I want to do the isolation thing.”
“Up.”
“It’s Saturday. Let me sleep.”
“You can never go back to sleep after you wake up—and you know it.”
“I hate you.”
“You’ll get over it.”
Some days getting up seemed like a bigger commitment than I was ready for. Get up and show up. That’s what you had to do in life. Well, according to my dad. On the other hand, Uncle Mickey liked to say that everybody deserved a day off from the truth. So there I was, talking to myself as I put on my running shoes.
I told Sam we should change it up, so we decided to run to the Santa Fe Bridge.
It was actually great running through the mostly empty streets o
f downtown El Paso. I liked that you could see and smell the border in the air and on the streets and in the talk of the few people we passed who spoke the special kind of language that wasn’t really Spanish and wasn’t really English. My dad said he moved back because he knew he belonged here. Here. I wondered if I would ever know that kind of certainty.
Sam shouted at me as we ran, “Great idea, Sally. I love this route.”
When we got to the bridge, we took a rest. And Sam said, “We should run across the bridge and then just cross back.”
“No quarters,” I said. “And no passport.”
“Crap. I hate that passport thing.” And she got that Sam look in her eyes. “Let’s get passports.”
I smiled. “Yeah. We should have passports.” And we took off running back home. We got into this race. I was a faster runner—but Sam held her own. If I slowed down just a little, she was right on my heels. And she was laughing and I was laughing too, and it was hard to run and laugh and breathe.
By the time we got to the library, we’d tired ourselves out, and we slowed to a jog. There were always homeless guys sleeping on the benches and stuff. We passed one of them, and I stopped and turned around.
“What?” Sam said.
“Isn’t that Fito?”
We walked up to the sleeping homeless guy who was not a sleeping homeless guy. It was Fito.
I shook him by the shoulder. “Hey,” I said, “Fito.”
He leaped up with his fists out.
I jumped back. “Hey, it’s okay. It’s just me.”
Fito got this really sad look on his face and slumped down and hung his head. “Sorry,” he said.
“What are you doing here, Fito?”
“What the shit does it look like I’m doing here, Sam? I’m sleeping.”
We both eyed the backpack. “What’s going on?”
Fito just looked at us. “I’m handling it.”