Lizzie laughed. “I’d forgotten how theatrical you could be, Mama. Revolution, Mama? In this country? Ludicrous. When I say stuff like that, do you really think I’m taking myself seriously? Do you think anybody else does? Certainly not you, Mama. And anyway, my views aren’t new—and I don’t leave my body only on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Sometimes I take myself out on a Saturday night. It’s like a date. And who told you I’d lost my interest in sex?”
“Helen’s noticed. She said you looked tired, preoccupied, and that you haven’t mentioned sex with a man in over a month. She said she’d never had a conversation with you when that didn’t come up at least once.”
“That’s ridiculous. Men have never been that important to me.”
“Ha! Men are all you’ve ever lived for. Boy crazy. You’ve been boy crazy since you started ovulating—and you started rather early as I recall.” She sipped on her coffee. “You were such a lovely child. Stand up. Let me have a look at you.”
Lizzie put down her cup of coffee and sighed in disgust. “Mom?”
“Just do as I tell you.”
Lizzie stood up, pretended she was modeling a dress for a prospective buyer, then lifted up her skirt and stuck her ass at her mother. “Done with the goods?”
“You have lost weight. You look different. Come here.” Lizzie obediently sat next to her mother. “Lizzie, what is it? I just know something’s wrong. Is it your brother? Is it that we lied to you?”
Lizzie sat back on the couch and stared at the framed poster on the opposite wall. “I don’t know,” she said quietly. “It’s everything. It’s as if I have to learn what it means to be alive. Every damn thing’s so strange to me—my body, my voice, the way I look—and I fluctuate between exhilaration and despair. I’ve always been emotional—but not like this, Mama. It’s never been this bad. My feelings are killing me.” She leaned her head on her mother’s shoulder. “Tell me what’s wrong, Mama.”
“I wish I could.”
“Stay the night? Can you, Mama? Can you hold me?”
“Yes,” her mother whispered, “But you have to hold me, too.”
“I promise,” she said, “I promise.”
2
February 1, 1988
Jon,
When you were five, you used to worship me, “Jacob, Jacob!” you used to yell, “I love you, love you.”
You used to follow me around the house if I wouldn’t play with you and you’d yell my name until I couldn’t stand it anymore and played with you.
I used to carry you. When you were a baby, I used to like to hold you. Mom would take you away from me because she said I’d drop you. But I was always careful with you—more careful than her. Sometimes I would just put you on my shoulders and give you rides all through the house, and then we’d go outside and I’d toss you in the air. You were so little. You used to sit on the lawn sometimes and play with bugs. You could play with insects forever and you would never kill them. You were as careful with bugs as I was with you. You were good with bugs and animals and people.
I taught you to swim, do you remember?
I wonder what kind of man you are.
Are you still careful? Are you still good with people? Did he damage you so deeply that you live somewhere alone and far away from everybody around you? I hope you’re not like me. I push people away all the time, always have. Even Joaquin—even him I pushed away. Except now that he’s dying.
Do you ever wonder where desire comes from? I never desired clothes or houses or property. I desired men. I wanted all of them. Where did I get that?
I keep going back to the house where we lived. I keep going back. I keep going back to that house to find you. Funny thing about that house we lived in, I keep finding things.
Today I remembered the first time I ever had sex. I don’t remember the event being very thrilling. Maybe a little. I was nervous. Uptight. I was scared. Hell, I was terrified. I was sixteen and it was with another guy. My best friend. We couldn’t look at each other afterward. We never talked to each other again after that. We were ashamed. I was. He was. Maybe he’s gay. Maybe he isn’t. Don’t know. Don’t think it matters. Now, I’d like to go back and tell him everything is OK, tell him it doesn’t matter. Why is everything always such a big deal? I was just a kid. And I felt bad for months. I was so ashamed. Isn’t it stupid, the things we suffer over? And where the hell does shame come from? Joaquin says that a conscience is not possible without shame …
I found out today I was HIV positive.
J is beginning to come down with symptoms. I want him close, now. And now he’ll be getting farther and farther away.
I’m scared, just like when I was a kid. And I’m so fucking angry. I can’t even tell you. I’d like to break the earth in half. Maybe not the earth. Maybe just the people.
Today. I hate anybody who’s healthy. Joaquin doesn’t hate. But I hate, and it’s so real, so fucking real. When I found out Dad had bothered you—I hated. That’s how I hate now. When I punched Mom out, I hated, and really it felt so goddamned good to hate—I mean really hate her and hit her. I could have hit her until my arms fell off their sockets. I hate so much sometimes that I think I’ll just explode. But it’s like food, sometimes. It’s what you’re used to eating—and you have to eat something. Joaquin always wanted to make me into a calmer man. I think he feels that if he had loved me more, then alt that rage could have been converted into something more positive. He is more than I ever deserved.
3
MARY SAT AT the usual table waiting for Diego to walk through the door of Sol’s Barbecue. He had never been late before, and she was uncomfortable sitting alone in a public place. She was afraid Diego would not show up—leave her sitting alone. They would ask her to leave—she knew it. Maybe no one would notice her. But people had always noticed her. “I was pretty and men liked pretty—and women liked pretty, too. Crazy—crazy isn’t pretty. I’m better, really I’m better.” She looked down at herself. “Maybe I’m better, but I’ll never be pretty again,” she whispered. She looked around the room nervously and distracted herself by playing with her newly painted nails. The lavender of the hard nail polish looked purple against her pale skin. She smiled at her hands as she stretched them out in front of her. She snapped her fingers and giggled. She looked up and watched Diego as he skipped through the door, and noticed the lightness of his footsteps. As he waved, her fear disappeared. “Johnny—hey honey,” she said, “see my nails! Ain’t they somethin’?”
Diego nodded at her. He wanted to reassure her because she seemed to always need to be reassured. He kept smiling at her almost stiffly. He had a large box in his hands tied with a huge pink ribbon. He placed it on the table in front of her and smirked.
Mary looked at the box and pretended a casual interest. Diego said nothing, but played with the pink ribbon. Finally, she was unable to keep her silence. “That’s an awful big box, Johnny.”
“Want to know what’s in it?” His hands skipped happily as he wrote.
“I figured if you wanted me to know, you’d tell me. Ain’t that right? My mama said men don’t care for women who want to know too much.”
He moved the box toward her side of the table. “For you,” he wrote in capital letters.
“Oh!” She took a deep breath like an actress in a play, the whole restaurant hearing her breathy exclamation. “Ain’t that somethin’.” She looked at the box and then looked at Diego. “You’re so good to Mary! How come you’re so good, huh, honey?”
Diego shrugged his shoulders. “Tomorrow’s Easter,” he wrote. “I thought you should have something special. Go ahead and open it.”
She looked at the box again. “What a pretty pink ribbon. I just love pink, Johnny, pink reminds me of the songs birds sing—I’ve always thought that.” She stopped talking and looked around the room nervously. “Ain’t that silly?” She undid the ribbon slowly. Her eyes opened wide and her hands trembled.
Diego kept his eyes on her face.
; Mary finished unwrapping the box clumsily. She tried to remember the last time anyone had given her a gift. “Do you like it, Mommy? Do you really, really like it?” “I love it, my angel, the most beautiful dress ever made—and you bought this for me—all by yourself?” “Daddy helped. Daddy helped …” She could feel she was going to cry. Just don’t cry, just don’t. She took the lid off the box. Just keep acting, just say words. She sat motionless for an instant, staring at the contents of the box. “Oh! My word, Johnny! If that ain’t the most gorgeous thing I ever saw. Oh! My sweetest Lord, ain’t that nice? Oh, sugar, you shouldn’t have.”
“Do you really like it?” Diego wrote.
“Oh, Johnny, I love it. I adore it! You are absolutely the kindest man I ever met.” She kept staring inside the box. “I just can’t believe it.” She put her hand on her chest as the tears ran down her face.
“Don’t cry, Mary,” he wrote.
She wiped her tears with a paper napkin and looked at Diego’s note. “I’m sorry, honey, it’s just that I’m a damn fool sometimes. Ain’t it just like a woman to spoil everything with tears? Ain’t it though?”
“Tears are nice,” he wrote, “like rain.”
She shook her head gently as she read the note. “Johnny, you’re sweet—you’re so, so sweet.” She folded up his note with her lavender fingernails.
“Don’t you want to model it for me?”
She reached over and gave Diego a kiss on the cheek. She smiled and took the white, wide-brimmed hat out of the box. Little yellow flowers were sewn into the borders and a wide yellow ribbon adorned it. She combed her hair back and put the hat on, tilting it to one side. She stretched her arms out as wide as she could. “How do I look?” Mary placed a finger under her chin. Diego stared at her painted nails. “I knew I should have painted my nails yellow—I just knew it.”
Diego smiled. “Purple’s fine.”
“You really think so?”
Diego nodded.
“You know somethin’, honey? I ain’t had a hat like this since I was a little girl. My mama used to buy one for me every Easter, and she used to take me to church, and I’d sit and stare at my white shoes and roll my white socks up and down—up and down—and I was so happy, Johnny. Life is good to children, ain’t it, sugar?”
Diego nodded. He wanted to tell her it wasn’t true, wasn’t true at all. “You want to go to church with me tomorrow?”
Mary stared at his written question. “Which church you go to, Johnny?”
“Usually Sacred Heart, but sometimes the cathedral.”
“Oh, I like that one,” she said, “all them windows. It reminds me of a garden—like I died and went to heaven.”
“You want to go with me? We can go to church there if you want?”
She thought a minute. “Well, honey, I ain’t never been to one of those church services before.”
“You’ve never been to a Mass?”
She nodded, “I ain’t Catholic.”
“It doesn’t matter, does it?”
She tilted her hat to the right, then to the left, “I guess you’re right, a church is a church, ain’t it? And I sure would like to wear my hat to church—it being Easter Sunday and all.”
“I’ll meet you at the plaza. We can walk from there, OK?”
“Oh! Yes, Johnny! That would be so lovely,” She placed her hands on her cheeks; her worn face blushed; she looked down at the skirt she was wearing. A new hat and no nice clothes, she thought, they’ll look at me, they’ll all look at me. Everyone’s always staring at us. Can’t take it, anymore, goddamnit! Get yourself to a place where no one will have to see you. You’re always causing a scene—just get the fuck out of my life … She looked down at her bag, and was immediately lost in a thought.
“Something wrong?”
She stared at Diego’s note and then his eyes. “Johnny, honey, Mary’s got to get busy.” She leaned over and kissed him again. “Mary’s got to run.” She took her hat off and placed it carefully in the box. “It’s a treasure, Johnny.” She smiled at him.
“Where are you going? We haven’t had lunch yet.”
“Mary’s got to go find something to wear,” She took some crackers off the table, placed the hat back in the box, and rushed out the door. Diego shook his head and laughed. She came rushing back in, breathless, and asked, “I nearly forgot, sugar, what time do I meet you at the park tomorrow?”
“Ten o’clock?” he wrote. She took the note and put it down her blouse.
“Tomorrow at ten. Mary’s gonna look fine, sugar. Sun’s gonna shine for Mary.”
Diego winked at her. She winked back as she hurried out into the city.
Diego got up from the table and headed toward the shops on Stanton Street. He thought maybe he’d buy himself a new shirt. Maybe even a tie. He thought about what Mundo had told him about his clothes. He walked into some shops and finally decided to buy a yellow shirt and a gray tie. He tried on the shirt and looked in a mirror. The color looked good on him, he thought. He nodded—and kept nodding. Mary would like it—even Luz would like it. Maybe he should get a hat, too. He looked at all the hats they had, trying them on, one after another—a black one, a white one, a gray one. The hats made him look like a little boy playing dress-up. He remembered the hats the men used to wear when his mother took him to church. The men would take off their hats, make the sign of the cross, and hold them over their hearts. He had thought at the time that they looked very holy. He decided to buy an imitation gray fedora. He looked in the mirror and smiled to himself. “If that doesn’t get me some good stares,” he said to himself, “then nothing will. It would be nice to be looked at.”
When Mary arrived back at her apartment, she frantically looked through her closets for the right dress. Finally, she found one—yellow with printed white flowers. She tried to shake the wrinkles out of it. She looked in the mirror as she placed the dress in front of her. She wondered if Diego would like it. He was a kind man, and he would say he liked it even if he didn’t. She imagined herself standing in front of him, and him reaching over and kissing her. His kisses would be soft. He would not know what to do, but she would show him. She felt as if she had come back from a long journey. I don’t want to be me anymore. I don’t need— She noticed a man standing in her doorway.
“Put it on,” he said.
She stared up at the voice. She knew who he was. She had noticed him watching her on the street, staring, staring.
He moved closer to her. “Put the goddamned dress on,” he said.
She froze. She had never heard him use that tone.
“I’ll scream,” she said.
“I’ll kill you if you do.”
She felt herself slipping away as she took her off her clothes. She felt the feel of the dress she had found just for Diego on her skin. She felt hands push up the dress. “Diego,” she whispered as the man entered her, “Diego tell me it’s you, tell me …”
4
August 12, 1993
Dear Jake,
Jacob Diego Marsh was born yesterday morning. “He’s so beautiful, Eddie,” that’s the first thing she said. It was still dark outside, but it was almost dawn. He was three weeks late, blena was very brave. The minute she was having hard labor pains, she lost her English completely. My Spanish is still really bad, so I didn’t know what she was saying—except my name, and I now know the word “dolor,” and now I really know how to perfectly say “Dios mío.” I’ll never forget those words, or how she looked. Her sweat smelled new and fresh like a tree after the rain.
She was strong, Jake, incredible! I thought she’d take my arm off its socket. And yet when it was over, she kept staring at this little child. She kept repeating my name, “Eddie, Eddie,” she kept saying. “Look. Look what we’ve made. Look, amor.” I know I was just one more man staring at his wife holding their new child—just one more man among a million others. One more child. Before I had him, in the back of my head I asked myself: “Does the world need another child?”
And I know the world doesn’t need him, doesn’t need him at all. But, Jake, I need him—and Nena needs him. And if we do right by him, maybe he will do something good for the world, something really good, so good that the world will be changed forever. I’m probably thinking the same thoughts as the million other fathers who had a child today. Maybe we are all hoping the same things.
It’s so strange, Jake, to hold a child—and to feel that kind of love. Did you know that when you love a child your heart hurts. I didn’t know that. It hurts. It’s the best pain (sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?)—but it’s the best pain—to feel the heart literally hurt, strange and awesome and, well, mortal. Jake, I’m a dad. I was too happy and tired and excited to sleep. I just wanted to be with her and with him, and I wish you could have been there so you could have driven me home and listened to me babble about the whole thing. I’m a father. In my cynical moments, I think to myself that I’m just perpetuating a system that’s gone bankrupt. Isn’t that what our parents tried to make us do? They thought we’d grow up to be big white boys who believed in big white gods. And we didn’t, did we? Tell me we didn’t, Jake.
He has Maria Elena’s eyes, and his skin is going to be dark. I can tell. But he has light fine hair—maybe he’ll be blond like you. Actually, right now it’s fuzz, but I think he might have your hair. It’s not my hair, that’s for sure. He’s very handsome. He has some very Indian features—Maria Elena’s genes. I want him to know all about you. I want him to know all about his past. I’m not going to hide anything from this kid—I swear I’m not—not about the country he lives in, not about the rich and the poor, not about sex, not about the families he comes from. I want him to know. I want him to carry that knowledge in the deepest parts of him. I don’t want him to wake up some day and say: “Why didn’t they tell me? Why didn’t they trust me with the truth?”
It’s very beautiful outside. The baby and Nena are coming home today. I’m bringing them home. I’m taking a month off from work. Actually, I don’t know if I’ll ever go back. Every day I sit there and think I’d rather be someplace else—doesn’t matter where. But it does matter where—I just don’t know what I’d like to do. I have choices. The rich always do—that’s what Lizzie always says. She’s right. I’m wasting my life for a buck I don’t even need. If I hate my job, then why keep punishing myself. Punishing myself is so easy—for what? For surviving? Right after Mom kilted Dad, and then herself, I had a dream. I dreamed I was in the room, and it was me kilting them. I woke as I put the gun to my own head. I sometimes think I should have died with them. Then it would be over for all of us. But then I think of Maria Elena. And now I think of my son. Maybe that’s why I wanted to have children—I’m hoping they’ll set me free. I hope they’ll give me another chance at something, another chance at my own life. I hope I’m not too heavy for my son. I hope he’ll be strong enough to carry his father in his body. One way or another, the poor little guy is stuck. If I believed in God, I would ask him to make me a good father. Please.