Sam. Learning to Talk. Me.
I WAITED FOR SAM at her locker after school. I was scared, and I didn’t know what was happening between us. Things had never been this way, and I had this awful feeling in my gut. I saw her walking toward me, but she pretended not to see me. She completely ignored me as she opened her locker, pulled out a couple of books, and then slammed it shut.
“I’m not talking to you,” she said.
I had to say something. Anything. “I’m the one that got slapped in the face.”
“Maybe you needed it.”
“You were talking to Eddie. He hurt you. What the hell’s wrong with you?”
“He was apologizing, you stupid shit. I was handling my own shit just fine, Sally.”
“Oh,” I said. God, there was this thing inside me, this thing that said I really was a stupid shit. I felt like an asshole. I mean, I wanted to hide somewhere, but there was no hiding. “Oh,” I said again.
“‘Oh.’ That’s what you have to say? That’s articulate.”
“I’m sorry, Sam. I really am.” God, I sounded stupid.
“I don’t get you lately. You used to be really sweet.”
“Maybe I wasn’t.”
“Yes, you were. But now you’re so inconsistent.”
“Well, you’re like that sometimes.”
“But you’re not me, Sally. And you did deserve that slap.” And then she smiled. “I see what you mean about hitting people. Sometimes it feels good.”
“I thought you weren’t talking to me.”
“Well, we’re going to have to figure some things out, aren’t we, Sally?”
I nodded. I don’t know. I didn’t feel like using any words. I didn’t. But she was talking to me and maybe there was this little crack in what we had. We weren’t broken, though. And that was good. That we weren’t broken. I wanted to hug her, but I had the feeling that Sam wasn’t quite ready for a hug.
Thanksgiving
WHEN FITO HANDED Mima the flowers he’d brought her, Mima’s face really lit up. “Beautiful,” she whispered. Sometimes Mima looked like a little girl. Even now. Innocent. And Fito, his face was all red, and he just wanted to find someplace to hide. I mean, that guy was super shy.
Aunt Evie took the flowers and put them in a vase. She looked at Fito and said, “So sweet, Fito.”
“Sweet? Not,” Fito whispered.
Mima put her hand on Fito’s cheek. “You’re too skinny. You need to eat.”
“I eat.”
“Well, you have to eat more.”
“Mima,” I said, “he eats all the time.”
Mima nodded. “When he gets old, he’ll be fat. Just like Popo. Popo was skinny too. But then he married me.” Her laugh was as fragile as the leaves she had raked when I was five.
Everyone was busy doing something in Mima’s kitchen. All the voices seemed to mix together, the voices of my uncles and aunts and some of my older cousins who had made it back home for a few days, Sam’s voice, Fito’s voice. And Mima’s voice. Her fading voice was the one I heard the loudest.
I asked my dad for the keys to the car. I needed cough drops and knew some were stashed in there. I wasn’t feeling so hot, and I was afraid I was catching a cold, which was bad news because when I caught a cold, I caught a cold. Bad news. No bueno. My throat was beginning to swell. I knew what that meant, and I was thinking, Shit shit shit! As I walked to the car, I heard my Uncle Tony and my Aunt Evie talking as they sat on the front porch. I had become a chronic eavesdropper. “It’s the old girl’s last Thanksgiving, Evie.”
“Don’t talk like that, Tony.”
“What do you want me to say?”
“We’re going to miss that woman. She’s something special.”
“Yeah, Evie. We’re all gonna miss her. We really have to make ourselves strong.”
“I know, Tony.”
“We can do this, Evie.”
“Well, we don’t have a choice, do we?” Aunt Evie was quiet for a little while, and then she said, “You know what I think? I think Mickey’s gonna take it the hardest.”
“Maybe so,” Uncle Tony said. “But I think Vicente’s gonna take it the hardest. Only he won’t show it.”
And then I heard Aunt Evie say, “Actually, I think Salvador’s gonna take it the hardest. He and Mom have something special. I still remember the day Vicente brought him over for the first time. Mom fell in love with that boy the minute she took him in her arms. It’s beautiful to watch them together. I think the kid’s gonna be devastated.”
Then I heard Uncle Tony say, “Maybe so, Evie. Maybe so.”
I told myself not to think too much about that conversation and just enjoy the beauty of the family I was so lucky to have. If it was going to be Mima’s last Thanksgiving, I was going to make the best of it.
I walked past the front porch from the side of the house where I’d been listening. I waved at my uncle and aunt as I went to the car and found the cough drops on the driver’s side. Dad kept them for what was becoming a smoker’s cough. No bueno. I popped one in my mouth, then walked toward the front porch. I smiled at Aunt Evie and hugged her.
Uncle Tony slapped me on the back. “You’re a good kid.”
I made a joke. “Not that you’d know.”
“Don’t be a smart-ass.”
We were making pies. Well, I wasn’t doing any making. It was really just my dad. And Uncle Julian. They’re, like, this team. They look alike. I sat next to Mima as Dad rolled out the dough.
Mima nodded. “I showed him,” she said.
She was calm.
Then Mima said to me, “We should make the corn bread.” Yeah, the corn bread. Mima’s stuffing was to die for. So I got the ingredients and made room for myself on the kitchen table. I took out a big mixing bowl. We always tripled the recipe. Making the corn bread with Mima was my thing. Our little tradition.
I watched her hands as they worked the batter over with a wooden spoon. I wanted to kiss them.
“Did we add the sugar?” Mima asked.
I nodded.
She winked at me.
Then my dad’s cell phone rang. He looked at his caller ID and answered. As he listened to the voice on the other end, he was wearing this really great smile and I knew it was Marcos. Mima was right. She said Dad was sad. No, he hadn’t been sad. He’d just been a little lonely—she’d said that, too. He noticed that I was watching him, and I just smiled at him. Like I knew something. And he just smiled back—like he knew that I knew something.
I wondered if Mima knew about Marcos. I wondered what she thought about all that. Maybe it just didn’t matter to her. She loved my dad. And all the other complicated stuff, well, maybe it just didn’t matter to Mima.
Sam. Talk. Fito. Talk. Me. Talk.
SOMEWHERE BETWEEN MAKING the corn bread and talking to my Uncle Julian, I started feeling a little worse. My muscles ached, and I kept trying to ignore what was going on in my body.
Then Uncle Mickey walked into the kitchen smelling like smoke—not cigarette smoke, but smoke like he’d been camping. “Time to put the turkeys in,” he said. I knew what that meant, but Sam and Fito didn’t. So I dragged them to my uncle’s house, two blocks away. Uncle Mickey dug a big hole in his backyard every year, put all kinds of seasoning on two turkeys, wrapped them in foil, and then wrapped them in gunnysacks that he’d soaked in water for two hours. Then he dropped them into the hole, which was full of red-hot wood—homemade charcoal.
I took Sam and Fito to Uncle Mickey’s, and they watched the whole ritual of wrapping the turkeys, dropping them into the hole, and covering it.
Fito was like, Wow! And Sam was like, Wow! And Uncle Mickey handed Fito and me and Sam each a beer. I noticed that Sam passed on the beer, which made me smile. I thought of the two bottles of wine we’d downed, and I sort of just shook my head. My Uncle Mickey talked about the whole cooking-in-the-ground thing. And Fito kept saying, “Man, I am totally a city kind of Mexican.”
Fito
liked the beer thing, but I wasn’t into mine and I was beginning to feel not so great. Still, Thanksgiving had to go on.
Fito and Uncle Mickey were talking, well, hell, they were talking turkey. Seriously. “In the morning I’ll take those babies out, and it’s gonna be the best turkey you’ll ever taste.”
“You’re going to sleep with the boys?” My Aunt Evie had this look on her face.
“Sure I am. Sally and I have had slumber parties since forever.”
“Still calling him Sally, huh?”
“Yup. I’m gonna call him that till he grows up.”
Aunt Evie laughed. “And there’s no monkey business?”
“Monkey business?” That made Sam laugh. “With Sally? With Fito? Monkeys is right. Nope. Not into monkeys.”
Aunt Evie shook her head and smiled as she handed us some extra pillows.
Sam got the bed. Of course she did. She was wearing her stupid Chihuahuas T-shirt. Maggie jumped up on the bed with her. Of course she did. If Maggie had the choice between the bed and the floor, Maggie always took the bed.
Fito and I were on the floor.
Sam was looking for some music on her laptop.
Fito was reading a text.
I was lying there thinking about things. And feeling not so great. I was feeling like I wanted to cry. Maybe it was because I was feeling bad, and it made me feel like a vulnerable little boy, and I didn’t like that.
Then Fito said, “Wish that Angel would stop texting me.”
“He’s cute,” Sam said.
“Yeah, well, he acts like a girl.”
Sam shot him a look. “What’s wrong with that?”
Fito had this I-really-stepped-in-it look on his face. “He wants me to buy him stuff. He be like, What are you gonna buy me? What is that? It’s like I have to buy him stuff to prove that I like him.”
“That sucks,” I said.
Sam rolled her eyes. “Well, I used to do that too.”
“What’s that about?”
Sam was all Ms. Expert. “He’s just insecure. No matter what you buy him, he’s not going to believe you really like him. Get rid of him.”
“Yeah. I told him I didn’t have time for that crap. He said, ‘Oh, now you be all about your straight friends.’”
“That would be Sam and me?”
“Yup,” he said. “I don’t know. I don’t know shit about love. And even though I’m gay, I don’t know shit about being gay.”
I laughed. “Well, I’m no expert on love either.”
“That’s for sure,” Sam said.
“Oh,” I said, “and how did all those bad boys work out for you?”
“At least I put myself out there. What about you, Sally?”
“I had a few girlfriends.”
“Not one date this year.”
“I’ve been busy.”
“Whatever,” Sam said.
“Well, all the girls think I’m secretly in love with you.”
“Yeah, well girls can be such—”
“Don’t say the B word, Sammy. Just don’t say it.”
“Consider it said.”
“Dating sucks,” Fito said. “Sam, remember that guy Pablo you were hanging with last year?”
“Yeah? Nice tats.”
“Yeah, well, he’s gay.”
“He’s gay? For reals? You sure?”
“Yup. We got drunk one night. Man, that guy can kiss.”
“Wow,” I said.
“Wow,” Sam said. “So what happened?” She always wanted to know the sordid details. Sometimes I wanted to tell her to just use her imagination.
“Not much,” Fito said. “I mean, he goes, like, ‘Let’s have a couple of beers.’ I could tell he’d already had a few. He parked the car downtown, and we go walking around after we’d drunk our beers, and I thought the guy was gonna rip my clothes off and shit. We were, like, in some alley, and then he got this text and he said he had to take off. He gave me his number, and so the next day I call him on his cell, and he’s, like, pretending nothing happened. ‘I was just drunk and shit.’ That’s what he says. Yeah, right, I say. And he goes whatever. And then I just say, ‘Laters, dude.’ So that’s what went down.”
Sam said, “He’s a selfish asshole, anyway. Thank God this high school crap is almost over. When you’re older, Fito, do you ever want to get married?”
“I don’t know. I got a lot of things to think about. I just want to get myself into college and shit. Make something of myself. Screwing around with some guy? Don’t know about that.”
“I get that,” Sam said. “But you know, after you graduate and have a job and all that. Would you like to get married?”
He looked over at me. “Yeah, I guess, maybe. I’m kinda used to the alone thing. But why not? I think I’d like to marry someone like your Mr. V. Or someone like Marcos. You know, someone decent. Someone who resembles a human being. I think a lot of gay guys are like I be a girl, or they’re the opposite and they’re like I be an animal and shit like that. Why can’t they be like I’m just a guy?”
I don’t know why, but that made me and Sam laugh.
And Fito kept saying, “It’s not that funny.”
And Sam said, “Maybe we’re laughing because the truth is funny.”
“Yeah, hilarious. Yup, yup.” Then Fito turned to me and asked, “What about you, Sal?”
Sam answered for me. “He wants to have four kids.”
“That’s cool. Not me. I don’t want little Fitos crawling around in the world. Bad idea. And anyway, I’m gay. Maybe that’s a good thing. I got a nasty gene pool.”
“Beating up on yourself. That your hobby?” Sam could lecture you by just asking a question.
“My hobby is trying to get by. I went to a counselor once. He told me I lived my life in survival mode. I smiled at him. But I was thinking, No shit.”
“Well, you know, maybe someday you’ll want to adopt a kid who’s in survival mode.”
“Don’t think so. It would be like living my shitty childhood all over again. But you, Sal, I kinda see you doin’ something like that. I’m not like you or your dad. Your dad, when he came over to talk to me at Sam’s place, I’m like, Who is this dude? I’m like, There are fathers like this in the universe? Really? Your dad, he’s like this fuckin’ saint. I bet guys are trippin’ all over theirselves to get at your dad.”
That made me laugh. “I don’t think my dad’s into that scene.”
“Well, that Marcos guy, I like that cat. Looks like they have something going there.”
And out of nowhere, I started to cry. I don’t know, maybe I was getting a fever. Hell, I don’t know, I just started to cry.
I heard Sam say, “Aww, Sally, you’re crying.”
I felt sick and hollow, as if there was nothing inside me, and I heard myself saying, “My Mima. My Mima’s gonna die.”
And then I felt Sam’s arms around me, and she was whispering, “Shhh. I gotcha. I gotcha, Sally.”
Church
IT WAS A GIFT. For Mima. Everybody went to Thanksgiving Mass. And everybody got dressed up. We all knew Mima didn’t go for the dressed-down thing at Mass—the I’m-dressed-like-I’m-going-to-a-football-game look. Dad and I and Fito wore ties. Mima loved that. She was so, so happy. We took pictures so we could put them on the computer for her to look at.
I felt awful.
I had cotton head. I kept blowing my nose, and everything around me sounded dull and fell on my ears with a kind of thud.
My muscles ached. Everything ached. But I kept smiling.
Fito was a little freaked out. “I don’t really do the church thing,” he said.
Sam said, “It won’t kill you.”
“See, you guys really are, like, these angels.” That’s what he said.
Sam, she just looked at him, and said, “Knock it off with that angel stuff. I’m not an angel. I don’t even want to be one. That’s not what I’m going for.”
I didn’t make it through Mass. Right ar
ound Communion time I was projectile vomiting in the men’s room.
Not Fair. Not Fair?
REALLY? WHO GETS the flu at Thanksgiving? God, I was sick.
I missed everything.
And the worst part was that I cried like a ten-year-old boy. But the best part was that Mima sat next to me on my bed.
“Aren’t you afraid I’ll get you sick?”
Mima smiled. “I’m already sick.”
Then I started crying, and I felt really far away from myself. I had a fever, and I kept telling Mima I was sorry I got sick. She took my hand and held it, and she put a cold washcloth on my forehead. “For the fever,” she said.
“Why are you taking care of me, Mima? You’re sick.”
“Because I want to,” she whispered.
“I like holding your hand,” I whispered back. It’s weird, the honest things you say when you’re sick. “I want you to stay with me forever.”
“I’ll always be with you,” she whispered.
“I don’t want you to be sick.”
“Don’t worry,” she whispered. “I won’t be sad. I don’t want you to be sad either.”
“Okay,” I said. “I won’t be.” I didn’t mean it, but I thought it would make her happy. I fell asleep with Mima holding my hand.
I had bad dreams, but at least I slept. I slept and slept and slept.
I remember Sam and Fito standing over me. And I remember saying, “I’m not a puppy.”
I got up from bed on Saturday. It was around noon. And I was really hungry. I mean, I was like Fito-hungry.
The tamales were all made. I missed the tamale-making thing and the everybody-telling-stories thing. I missed all the cussing and all the laughing.
I was sad.
I wasn’t allowed to eat tamales. Turkey soup. Yup. I sat in the kitchen and felt sorry for myself eating turkey soup.
I took a shower and changed and felt a little better. You know, I kind of felt like a T-shirt that had been spinning in the dryer for way too long. I was sitting in front of the Christmas tree with Sam and Fito.