Happy That It's Not True (3 page)

Cara heard the words echo back and forth
,
I love yo
u
.  The car made a treacherous sound, the lights illuminating the night with bluish halogen as it rolled into the street.

The raft’s bobbing seemed tamed after the last band of showers.  The men’s hands were swollen from their clinging, some surprised they hadn’t fallen into the ocean.  One man interrupted the storyteller as if the details were more important than life. 

She leaves him?  The man is shell-shocked from war, and she leaves him?

              He is corrected by another man.

She is asking for a separation, it’s not the same.

              It might as well be.

              The largest and strongest of the men gently scoffs by exhaling. 

              Let him tell his story.  It will preserve our sanity.  But make no mistake, there is much more to the telling of a story.  We are all storytellers.  We have a dark side within ourselves.  We create tremendous dramas.  Our emotions create thoughts and our thoughts create more emotions.  So it seems to be the end of a marriage.  Life goes on for them.

              No—the storyteller says—Life doesn’t just go on.  A man must survive his injuries.

Chapter Three

The summer Cara turned nineteen, the days had become cold and gray.  Even as the South Florida temperatures soared, bleaching the roads and causing the skies to explode into heavy downpours—too much had happened for life to feel like a season of warmth.  First there had been the foreclosure and eventually the divorce.  Octavio was redeployed to Afghanistan and every time he returned, he was less the father, fading into a secret life of angst and emotional pain. 

For a time after the foreclosure, Adriana knew homelessness, living with Cara and Alex in her car during the day, and at night inside a friend’s garage.  It was only for a short time, but it broke her spirit.  She never told Octavio, who had been on a tour at the time, but, in time, put together enough money to move to an apartment in Hallandale. 

              Alex had grown into an overweight young man, not as tall as his father, his glasses adding to his awkwardness and slight but detectable self-conscious bearing.  Cara, slim and lovely, did everything she could not to stand out or reveal any splendor, dressing in grungy clothes, wearing her hair in a bun most of the time.  She had hated high school so much that she only wanted it to be over, and when she graduated wanted no further education.

              Adriana hid bottles of liquor in her bedroom, which she craved when she got home from work, deluding herself with notions about calculated drinking and stopping before it became a problem.  Her drinking had started after she had married a man named Luciano, who entered her life like an aggressive salesman, promising an end to loneliness.

              Luciano had worked for the hospital as an orderly when Adriana met him.  Every night she would care for patients, and Luciano wouldn’t be far behind making beds and changing linens.  Alex and Cara did not like Luciano.  Even Adriana did not like him. 

Aside from being a Cuban American, Luciano was a strange creature she had nothing in common with.  During the wedding, Adriana’s skin broke out and her allergies assaulted her.  She would regret not listening to her body screaming in protest.  It was a miserable day, and she thought that when it ended she would feel better.

              Luciano was a failed pinch hitter in his thirties still in the Class-A minor leagues.  Although he spent much time weight training to improve his upper body strength, he only succeeded in becoming a large man with a substantial potbelly.  His use of sports supplements made him irritable.  He had unruly hair, gray at the sideburns, absurdly heavy stubble and a hairy neck.  His eyes were puffy and swollen, which would have been his dominant feature if it weren’t for the large bushy mustache that made him look like a spaghetti western villain.

              Most evenings, Luciano was absent, frequenting nightclubs and strip bars with younger baseball players.  When he lost his job at the hospital, he became a terror—spending more time at home and becoming emotionally abusive.  Alex and Cara avoided him, but any attempts not to speak to him would result in interrogations and more hostility.  Adriana lost her nerve to argue with him; never sure of what he was capable of.

              In the midst of her miserable family life, it was Adriana’s volunteer work at the VA that provided moments of joy and a sense of purpose.  It allowed her to avoid the possibility of having to spend time with Luciano, and it was also a form of penance.  Her failed marriage to a soldier had left her with guilt and regrets she could not utter.  The separation had done the opposite of what had been intended—Octavio became more immersed in his waking dream and all but forgot his family. 

              Adriana was entering the VA hospital one day.  As her eyes adjusted from sunlight, she saw a hand-cycle cruising down the hallway. 

              “Hey—look—I got it—it came in at last!” said a young soldier about Cara’s age wearing a leg prosthetic.

              “Nice trike!  Have you been outside yet?” Adriana said.

              “No—not yet.”

              “Let’s go!”

              Adriana, with the help of another person entering the building, held the double doors open—allowing the hand powered recumbent trike access to the bright warm day.  After watching the young soldier ride back and forth down the sidewalk several times, they both found shade under a tree.  Adriana sat down to engage the soldier in the type of conversation she always hoped would help her better understand her former husband. 

              “Nice hand cycle.  How’s the leg?”

              “This leg’s much better—the battery lasts a lot longer.”

              The soldier almost seemed too young to have served his country.  A rocket-propelled grenade had hit his vehicle in an ambush in Afghanistan, forever changing how the world would look, taste, smell, sound and feel.  He still needed a bone graft, about two more surgeries and some implants for missing teeth.  He was fortunate; the facial scars weren’t too bad and only needed minor plastic surgery. 

              “So what’s been going on since I last saw you?” Adriana said.

              “Remember my little brother?”

              “Yeah—what happened?”

              “H
e
wasn’
t
scared to look at me—h
e
doesn’
t
think I’m a monster.”

              “I told you—you’re in really good shape.”

              “I scare myself a little when I look in the mirror.”

              “That happens to everyone,” Adriana smiled compassionately.

              “Not to you—you’re beautiful.”

              “Thanks—let me remind you, I’m old enough to be your mother,” Adriana laughed.

              “Yes Ma'am.”

              “So the leg’s good?”

              “Yeah—just a little upsetting—the way people look at me and don’t say anything.  I wish someone would ask me what happened.  I could tell them that I lost my leg while serving...”

              As he spoke, Adriana realized how much she still loved Octavio—how her pain now was greater without him.  It was a heartbreaking yet joyous discovery, but at least now she knew.   She could almost picture Tavi’s fragile countenance, clawing at her heart.  Inside her, eternal frustration and sympathy, feelings that had never left her.  Why hadn’t she stayed with him?  If only she had known that the end of a relationship would never have cured her of caring more for him than anything in the world.  She missed him, the greatest friend and lover she had ever known.  The past and who they once were, far away at the other end of the universe.  An incomprehensible glimpse into the truth of their love opened up before her.  She felt like a child without a shred of wisdom or knowledge, not knowing what to think or feel.  But in an odd fashion, she was grateful for this revelation. 

              Life is often transformed by the subtle and imperceptible, the delicate surprises that happen so gently that one is almost unable to notice them, like a gradual and disarming trail that guides us to some sense of purpose.  It is only when we lower our defenses that truth is comfortable enough to sneak up behind us with an embrace—truth that we will never fully understand, truth that exists unnoticed and independent of our approval.  Yet there are some things that are as plain as the sunlight that find their way deep into our cavernous lives.  For Adriana it was her love for Tavi that was both plain and surprising.

              For Cara and Alex, it was still a time of subterranean activity, the means by which lives become cavernous.  There is much that forms a young heart; every day is a new birth, filled with opportunities for life and the injuries that raise unwanted defenses.

...

After school, Eduardo—a young man with bad acne, marred by his pathological contempt for anyone who didn’t speak Spanish—grabbed Alex’s iPod Touch and ran through the neighborhood, avoiding dogs and cursing neighbors.  Alex did his best to keep up with him, determined that no matter what, he would fight to the death.  Eduardo, after an eternity of being tracked, his hands sore from jumping fences and his lung capacity diminishing, stopped and hunched over, gasping, the device held against his sweaty thigh.  Alex, also out of breath, caught up and slowly approached him.

              “Give it back,” Alex said.

              “You’re such a coconut.  I can’t believe you listen to indie music.  What’s wrong with you?  You don’t act like a Latino.  You don’t talk like a Latino.  You don’t have a Latino attitude.  You’re not Latino!  You disgust me!”

              “Give it back.”

              “Careful, don’t get too close or I’ll sack tap you.”

              “That’s not even funny.  A guy on the news had to have a testicle removed because of that.”

              “All right, truce then.”

              “Give it back.”

              “Make me.”

              “I thought you said truce?”

              “Yeah, I’m not going to sack tap you.”

              “Pizza face!”

              Alex was standing too close and Eduardo slapped him.  “Fat ass!”

In the moment it took for Eduardo to recover from his laughter, Alex grabbed his iPod Touch and ran, Eduardo chasing him.  Alex ran in the direction of his home, grunting and groaning, hoping that Eduardo would tire.  Eventually, he did, but Alex kept running—hoping that he would disappear into the horizon, that his street and apartment number would remain a secret.

              Alex, sweaty and wheezing entered the apartment to another profound disappointment, his stepfather. 

              “What’s wrong with you?”              Luciano asked in a tone that said he really didn’t care what the answer was.

              “Nothing.”

              Alex walked into his room, knowing not to close the door. 

              “What’s your problem, you don’t want to talk to me?  You better answer me.”

              “I was outside running.  I’m out of breath.”   

             
“
Hembrit
a
—you should do something about your laziness— you’re such a geek—on the computer all the time.”  Luciano had said this just as Alex was powering up his laptop, and it made Alex hate him more.  He started to say something under his breath, but didn’t want Luciano to see his lips move. 

              “When I was young,” Luciano continued prodding.  “I would be outside all the time getting into trouble—breaking windows, raising hell.  Kids nowadays are a bunch of sissies, staying indoors with all your girl toys.  You’ll never be a man
—
maricó
n
.  At least get a job, so mommy doesn’t have to give you lunch money.”

              Luciano stood at the doorway to the room, badgering Alex with his presence and a stare that was burning the back of his head.  After a minute he spoke, his voice sounding more conciliatory.  “You don’t like me, fine—the hell with you.”

              Luciano went into the kitchen to check the refrigerator and talk to himself.  “You’re dumb, just like your mother.”

Alex’s jaw tightened with anger.  For a moment, he could picture his father fighting the Taliban and wondered why he hadn’t inherited his father’s courage—why he couldn’t stand up to Luciano.              

              Luciano was watchin
g
SportsCente
r
through the pass-through in the kitchen, commenting on the day’s scores and highlights—cursing the unfortunate losses.  Alex browsed Wikipedia and searched for the word epigenetics.
 
My God, it’s so important to cure neuroses before they’re passed on to children...

              A cat food commercial filled Luciano with a strange enthusiasm. 
“
Mis gaticos
!
  They’re so cute.  Have you seen the kittens in the parking lot?”