Five Boroughs 01 - Sutphin Boulevard (22 page)

He needed to understand there was nothing wrong with him. He was gorgeous, funny, and amazing in bed, and I was just a punk who was too afraid to keep screwing around for fear of losing my only friend.

David got off the train in SoHo, and I sat down and zoned out until the train arrived in Queens. By the time I was back in Jamaica, it was a little before six o’clock but already pitch-black.

A familiar sense of weariness swept me, and I prayed everything at the house was calm. A couple of drinks while sitting down with a stack of ungraded papers sounded great. I envisioned the scenario as each step brought me closer to my block, head cast down and earphones blasting loud enough to drown out the world. My mood lifted just slightly at the possibility of relaxation, but the flimsy thread of hope disintegrated when a wash of red and blue lights bounced across the pavement ahead of me.

Ambulances were parked in front of my house.

The instinct to rush forward choked me, but I stopped in my tracks. I stood swathed in the shadows of a towering tree and stared at the scene playing out in front of my childhood home. Neighbors huddled on the sidewalk, a police officer was speaking to my brother in the front yard, and an ambulance with shut doors and EMTs loaded inside, ready to drive away. Dread filled my stomach.

“Ray?” I called out. No one turned or reacted, and I moved closer, tried again. “Raymond!”

Raymond looked up.

We looked at each other across the short distance, my hands still gripping the straps of my backpack and his expression becoming tighter the longer we stared. I forced myself to go to him, to be the responsible one, the big brother, but I wanted to turn and run at the sight of the ambulance.

One foot in front of the other, and the whole block was staring. I heard our neighbor crying, the woman who had babysat us as children when Mami was working two jobs. Her hand brushed my shoulder when I passed, but I didn’t take my eyes off my brother.

“Pops is dead.” Raymond’s voice was wooden. He looked down at his feet; they were bare. “I tried to wake him up, but he wouldn’t. I thought he was sleeping.”

The feeling building inside my chest was more familiar than it should have been. A widening hole dark enough to swallow my heart and leave me breathless.

“I uh—”

I looked at the cop, but he was already focused on something else. The yawning hole in my chest gaped wider and sucked every feeling I had inside like a vacuum. Raymond grabbed my arm, fingers digging in.

“I—I should have called. I didn’t think—I don’t know—”

“It’s okay. I’ll take care of it, Ray. You stay here.”

“No.” Raymond moved closer, clutching me tighter. “No, I’m going.”

I nodded, my mind going a mile a minute and words clogging in my throat. He had to put on shoes, to get dressed, to be ready, but even after Mami, I still didn’t know what else to do.

I forced my gaze away from the blur of red-and-blue lights. The cop was now speaking to me, but I couldn’t make out the words. Everything was a wet warble. He may as well have been under water.

Raymond pulled me close. He was trembling. I was making things worse. I wasn’t reacting fast enough, being strong enough, but I couldn’t. The world was full of shadows and white noise. Crumbling around me. Once again falling apart.

What did I care? I’d basically told my father this was what I’d wanted. Made sure he knew I hadn’t wanted him. Made sure he knew I didn’t love him. All of the words I had spit in anger, accusing and hateful and forever in his mind before his body had simply stopped.

Those moments replayed in my mind as we followed the ambulance to the hospital, my hands steady on the wheel while Raymond called Aida and John, his voice raw from unshed tears.

We got to the hospital quickly, but I missed a turn, couldn’t find the right parking lot, and nearly crashed into the gate. My hands weren’t steady anymore and my throat felt dry, an itch at the back that demanded something to calm me down. The need was all-encompassing, an ache in my gut, and somehow the fixation helped me focus not just on everything that was wrong, but all the ways I could make it right.

That kept me standing when Aida nearly knocked me down, clinging so tight and sobbing so hard my knees almost buckled under her weight. It gave me something to look forward to while listening to John talk about the arrangements, after he put his hand on my shoulder.

The pity in his face broke me, and I lost it in the middle of a hospital hallway with a bunch of strangers looking on.

John took a step forward, but I backed away and turned to face the wall. Tears poured down my face, unceasing and horrible, and I knew Raymond was watching. People were talking to me, but again they sounded like they were under water; as though the torrents of tears had turned into a river that was washing me away.

All I could think of were the words I’d exchanged with Joseph—what I’d said to him in front of John on Thanksgiving, the look on his face and the contempt in my voice; the way I’d shut him down each time he had tried to express a kind word, every time he had admitted to being proud of me.

The way I hadn’t stopped him drinking because I’d given up so fast.

My shoulders shook, and I hid my face against the wall. I held my hands over my ears, but I still heard the words. I saw his face when I told him he was nothing, and I hated myself so much that I just wanted to be gone.

Someone touched me, but this time the hands weren’t hesitant. They were strong, sure, and I knew they belonged to Nunzio.

I turned to him, seeking his warmth, and buried my face against his neck. His arms encircled me, one hand digging into the hair at my nape while the other rubbed my back. I felt people watching, but I needed him so much that I didn’t care.

“I didn’t hate him. He thought I hated him, but I swear I didn’t. I was just so mad.”

“I know, Mikey. I know.”

“He didn’t know.” I shut my eyes, blocking out everything except for what I could see in my head. “He didn’t fucking know.”

New Year’s

I
DROPPED
the glass on the table with too much force, and the ringing sound reverberated in my ears. If I could hear it over the excited laughter around me, it meant my face was too close to the table.

Two hours in, and I was already fading.

The bar was not large, but the New Year’s Eve partygoers had invaded in droves. I’d claimed my spot at a back table after wandering Manhattan for hours in the bitter cold, and ordered Jack Daniels in a voice so low and rough the bartender had barely heard me over the crowd. Strange how a little amber liquid could spread so much warmth.

I wondered if the combination of swank suits, high heels, and fancy dresses indicated a private party. If so, no one asked me to leave. Maybe the staff could sense my festering misery despite all my attempts to remain stoic.

Two weeks after the funeral, and I could still remember exactly how my father had looked during the viewing.

Everything from the color of the suit, the hairstyle, and the type of casket had been wrong. He would have said the stripes made it look like he was wearing a zoot suit, the combed-back hair made him seem like an extra from West Side Story, and the metallic casket resembled a spaceship. He would have also hated the phonies who took turns giving speeches about his life and making outrageous claims about the impact he’d had on theirs while leaving out the fact that each one had quit speaking to him years ago.

I had never understood why people felt the need to mythologize the dead in order to justify mourning them, but funerals had a way of bringing out the worst in the living. Especially during the family gatherings that followed.

For the most part, I’d opted out. I’d stood by my brother as much as I could, trying to support him while only operating with a tiny fraction of my brain’s capacity, but it hadn’t taken long for Raymond to realize that I was useless this time around.

Guilt was a disease that had infected my every thought, word, and action. It became a sentient being that whispered in my ear for the duration of the planning and the services. It told me I didn’t have the right to have an opinion on my father’s funeral, so I shouldn’t be angry that John took complete control. I didn’t have the right to criticize his phony family or lowlife friends. I didn’t have the right to be there. I didn’t even have the right to cry.

So I avoided everyone, kept my head down, and slunk away when my silent presence made the others too awkward to continue with their maudlin platitudes, and the days passed without transition.

I couldn’t remember what I’d done on Christmas beyond staying in the attic and refusing to speak to anyone. The plan for New Year’s had been the same, but Raymond had forced me to promise that I would go out. I’d complied mostly because remaining locked in the house our parents had died in was starting to feel dangerous for my mental health. It was far too easy to fall face-first into a pit of despair, and just keep falling.

Left in peace to work my way through enough whiskey to rot my insides, I tried to ignore the expanding crowd. It worked until a sloppy drunk girl in a white dress nearly fell backward on my table. I stared, she and her friends laughed, and I bet they were the type to believe in resolutions and fresh starts.

The naiveté was nauseating, and I hated them all. No resolution would improve my situation and another year flipping on the calendar wasn’t going to change my luck. I could brood my way through the next century and no amount of prayers, wishes, or promises to change would undo the curse of being born into the Rodriguez family.

Looking down, I straightened the list I’d begun compiling earlier in the afternoon. It was wrinkled and a little damp, but I could still read the words. The name of every person in my family who was miserable, involved in a chemical dependency, or dead. I’d taken a shot for each name on the list, and after two hours, I was a hundred dollars in the hole. A couple more and I’d black out, but self-induced amnesia was quite all right with me even if it was a temporary solution.

“Hey, can I borrow this chair?”

I stared through the too-much-Jack sheen and tried to focus on the guy looming above me. He was young, hair too long, smile too big, but eyeballing me like maybe he wouldn’t mind talking about something besides a chair. I waved him off and resumed my contemplation of the list.

“Are you okay?”

“Just take the damn chair.”

The guy backed off but shot me not-so-discreet glances from across the bar. I wished everyone would leave me alone. It was stupid. I’d put myself into this situation—surrounded by people, looking like hell, and so obviously unhappy that I was practically waving a
pity me
banner, but still not willing to talk to anyone.

I muttered it aloud and seemed to jinx myself because my phone vibrated. My fingers were clumsy and uncoordinated, and I nearly dropped it twice before squinting at the screen.

I brought the phone to my ear in slow motion. “Yeah?”

“Hey.”

I debated hanging up on David but croaked, “What’s up?”

There was a hesitation on David’s side and the rise and fall of multiple voices, laughter, and loud music. Someone called out to him, and I heard David’s muffled voice request for them to wait a moment so he could step outside.

My eyes scanned the room, paranoid he would pop up somewhere in the crowd.

“I was wondering if you’re going to come out,” he said once the background noise faded.

“I’m out.”

“I mean out with us. The whole team is at Karen’s party.”

“I can’t be around people right now.”

David sighed into the receiver, the sound hitting the microphone too loud. “Nunzio’s here.”

The words startled me. I hadn’t talked to Nunzio since the funeral, and hadn’t responded to his repeated messages and calls. I couldn’t deal with the possibility of him trying to make me feel better about myself and the situation even if it resulted in him being pissed. But even as miserable as I was, I craved his touch and thought about him so much that the distance was unbearable.

“Oh,” I said after a beat of silence.

“Yeah…. So he’s here. You could be too.”

“Is he having fun?”

“I don’t know. We were dancing a little bit ago. He’s wasted.”

I wondered if they would make out when the clock struck midnight like a couple of fucking clichés, and then go screw each other in the bathroom. It was what Nunzio did every year without fail, bringing in the New Year with a new fuck, and then vowing that the next year he’d change everything and stop messing around so much with different guys. I could practically see them crushed together, Nunzio’s olive skin contrasting with David’s paleness.

“You have fun with him.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean have fucking fun with him.”

“Michael, I didn’t mean it like—”

I hung up. I knew I was being irrational, but I turned off my phone anyway. It was a hair-trigger response, and I almost immediately turned it back on just in case Raymond called me later in the night. But it was unlikely. Raymond wasn’t trying to alienate his friends. He wasn’t sitting alone somewhere like a goddamned loser.

“Fuck,” I whispered, covering my face with my hands. “Fuck my life.”

“Are you sure you’re okay?”

Jumping halfway off the chair, I dropped my hands and glared at the guy who was now sitting across from me. “Jesus fucking Christ, don’t you have someone else to talk to? Do you want the chair I’m sitting on now?”

The guy grinned in response to my vitriol. Was he an idiot or did he think I was trying to be cute? Judging from the tattoo crawling up the side of his neck, the gauges and piercings, and general aura of badass, I drunkenly assumed he just got off on people with an asshole vibe. He also had big blue Nunzio eyes, which were more of a distraction than was healthy. But his hair was too light, his jaw not as defined, and his lips not as full….

I looked down at my empty glass. Fuck.

“I don’t want your chair, but I’ve been watching you and you most definitely do not look okay.”