A Love Like Blood (11 page)

I stare at the knife and the underwear in my hand, unsure what to do. Three minutes pass.

“You should go down now. Take my watch and your knife. Put them in your pocket to help you.”

As I walk downstairs, the quiet that follows makes me think of the ‘L' train in Chicago and the metal on metal roar of old trains hurtling past an old city. The quiet concerns me more than my safety. At all the train stations in downtown Chicago, it is always quiet before the roaring.

P
ushed from behind by distraction, my foot kicks a tin box on the floor. The lid pops open. The mirrored top and metals glint. Buried under grandfather's cufflinks, mother's wedding band, a wedding cord, a red seed bracelet, a Bobby pin, a Cuban coin, and a tooth, there is a gold thorn necklace. Most of the gold flaked off inside the tin. I bought it for Cecilia from Ford City Mall to wear to prom. Tenth-grade year, when I asked her to be my girlfriend, I was not asking her out, I was asking my father to not see me as weak. Womanhood would have pumped oxygen into the lungs of our new relationship. Every time I kissed her was a chance to be the son he wanted. However, every time I kissed her confirmed I was not another Junior.

I can taste her lip gloss now – cherry vanilla.

In January of tenth-grade, I received permission from the school to work off campus at The Tribune. The time that Cecilia and I hung out shriveled up from every day to once a week. Sometimes less. Her absence was nourishment. And, I could taste its sugary sweet juice. It was as if God had kissed my head and given me an excuse to breathe and dream behind cameras. The editor of the school newspaper cornered me downtown months later, shaking me awake. Cecilia confessed to his girlfriend that she wanted to have sex after prom. We had performed every sexual act that I wanted to have with a girl except vaginal, oral, or anal. I would force myself to finger her, and then scald my hand, washing it with soap, shampoo, alcohol, and dishwasher detergent. Her vagina smelled like cold beer and warm puppy breath. When she wanted to go further, I hung religion over her head like a crown of ash crosses. Eventually, I stopped clipping my fingernails.

On accident, a fingernail flicks a frame on the wall as I listen for her voice. Father's dominates the conversation in the dining room.

The day of prom, Father left a condom on my desk, with a note that said, “Proud of you, son.” I kissed the word and said it out loud, repeating it as if it were a prayer. He stacked peppermints around the condom in a circle. I waved my hand back and forth under the light cast from the gold wrapper. Neither of us mentioned it when he adjusted my cummerbund that night. The foil crinkled each time Cecilia's thighs rubbed from my thighs to my crotch on the dance floor. One of the edges folded back and scratched my leg through the pocket lining.

Dwelling on that detail, I rub the spot where there used to be a jagged scar. Fingers snap in the dining room.

At midnight, our school principal kicked everyone out of the Crystal Garden at the Navy Pier. Cecilia's girlfriend invited us to a party at the Four Seasons above the Nine Hundred Shops on Michigan Avenue. I hoped the party would weaken her to yawns so I could drop her off by her curfew at two in the morning. The room lights were off, and the drapes pulled back. Body odor, cologne, girlhood, alcohol, and anticipation weighed down the hot air. I saw the outlines of more bodies than I expected. My girlfriend squeezed my hand, leading us around high heels, church shoes, plastic cups, crushed flowers, and over things that crunched under my feet. I bumped into a table. Thick liquor bottles clinked. I grabbed the edge, and a rose prickle pricked my finger. A voice moaned, mimicking my pain but sexualizing it. Smacking, gulps, sucking, zippers unzipping, and candy wrappers unwrapping were like a compass guiding us either in the direction of kissing, drinking, undressing or freshening our breath. Cecilia poured our drinks, heavy, thankfully. In the dark, I bent over and rammed my fingers down my throat, vomiting up the chicken, sweet potatoes, broccoli, and salad that I ate. While the people beside us rushed to the other side of the room, my girlfriend grabbed my hand and hurried into the bathroom. She wiped splatter off of my tuxedo and then cleaned up the vomit in the room. We left to a thunderous applause.

Father's voice stomps the thunder out into an uncomfortable silence. The word
love
falls from his mouth, and I stumble on the stairs. Attraction is not a flashlight switch that can be clicked off. In the past, I wished I could blind myself from seeing the beauty in men, to be an ordinary black flashlight on a white perforated shelf in a discount store and be like my Father. But, at this moment, I don't.

With my head stretched away from hers, I assumed the stench on my breath would squash Cecilia's desire to have sex. My hand cupped the hardness in my pants. She wanted it in the car, parked where we were, on a side street two blocks from the hotel. We looked like a newlywed couple – Cecilia in a white dress and me in a white tuxedo jacket with balloons smothering us in the back seat. I pretended I was too nauseous to push my tongue into her mouth. She drove Junior's car, heelless and in silence, back to my house. Then, she waited for the city bus outside in the cold. I watched her from my bedroom window smoothing the wrinkles out of her wedding dress. The bus arrived, and she waved without moving her hand from the front seat. I felt sorry for the both of us.

The condom had fallen from my pocket onto the bed. I walked into the bathroom, dropped the wrapper in the sink, and lit it on fire with a matchstick. I unpinned the rose boutonniere and dropped it into the fire, then urinated on them.

As I pass by her photograph, on the last step of the stairs, I try to pick out soft plump lies to tell Cecilia. Once found, they escape my mouth in a boyish rush and feel too formal. New words that follow me to the corner seem brutal. When people speak with brutal honesty, the brutality, not the honesty is remembered the most. The bottom of a chair scrapes the carpet as someone stands up in the dining room, and I dig the bottom of my feet into the floor. I want to turn away, to run out the front door, but if run, I won't be moving the way my blood beats. Thorns from a bush planted by a shaken man prick deeper than other thorns. The scratches and the ugliness ahead give me the chance to be the son I need to be – prepared to fight.

L
egs wobbly, but determined to speak, I lean back, listening to their voices.

“Carsten,” Father yells from the opposite side of the wall.

An electric shock jolts my hand. The sensation stings, spreading up to my shoulder, then onto my skin. A patch of bumps burst out on my wrist. The bumps itch; I scratch and loose balance. My hand crunches as it lands flat on the console table. The smell of citrus and mint rises up from the bundle of khat. The leaves snap as I pluck them off the stalk. I roll a wad of leaves into a little ball and pack it down inside my right cheek – the way Father showed me. The taste is green, sour, and unpleasant. Six bundles are wrapped in banana leaves, tied with string, and twisted at the bottom. Evergreen glistens under lime. I chew more leaves and stuff the lump beside the little ball, squashing my tongue against the mass. Slime dribbles down the edge of my mouth. Meat, men's cologne, mint, and fresh cut grass bounce on the surface of the summer air. I should smell kiwi and melon from Cecilia's signature perfume. I hear two clicks, possibly from a cigarette lighter. The scents thin out and frankincense carpets the hallway. In the dining room, Ricky's voice squeaks and Junior whispers. Our Father, who doesn't art in heaven, is giddy, attaboy-patting Ricky for kissing a girl. I shiver and slump against the wall. The bronze rooster vibrates on the table. My hand swings, rubbing the knife in my pocket. To hide the bulge, I hold my hand over my thigh. In my other hand, I squeeze Brett's watch and then shove it in my pocket. I rub the rooster's pearl bone, before rushing through the doorway to madness.

Father and Ricky sit, laughing at the table, taking up more space than necessary. Clean-shaven, but curse-filled, Father looks fifteen pounds heavier. He stabs the air with a child-like excitement that would've forced me to smile on a different day. Slouching against the same wall I had been eavesdropping behind, Junior calls me over, but I ignore the gesture. I search for clues a woman would leave – a lip smudge, a folded napkin, a purse, or perfume. Pizza boxes, chicken wings, garlic bread, string beans, two cakes, khat leaves, tea mugs, plates, and a soapstone pot hide the tabletop. The fourth plate is the only plate missing food. Glancing back, I notice medical tape binds Junior's index and middle finger together on his right hand. His left fist is under his right triceps. The telephone sits propped in the crook of his neck. The puffiness under his eyes, his receding hairline on the sides, the roundness of his belly, and his hairiness betray his youth.

“No, I'm not dating her,” he says into the telephone. “We met yesterday in downtown.”

“Where's Cecilia?”

“On the phone with Junior,” Father says.

“He's out now. I'll put him on,” Junior says.

The triangular space where my chest and stomach meet becomes wet as Cecilia says, “goodbye.” A cemetery quiet falls. From behind the wall, I hear the soft suction sound of a door closing. I slide the knife from my pocket and hide it between my thighs on the seat.

With an expression appropriate for church, Father asks, “What did she say?”

“You said she was here.”

“She was here. On the phone. Luckily, Junior talked to her, so she did not realize it took you thirty minutes to come downstairs. Did she tell you she is coming to visit?”

“I have something to tell you.”

“She's pregnant. Isn't she?” Father says. “I knew it.”

“No.”

“You're seeing someone else and she is pregnant.”

“Let him talk,” Junior says.

“I like men, not girls.”

Father shapes his mouth into an O, opening wide, imitating Marian Anderson in the Richard Avedon poster. Where she becomes a beautiful creature, he becomes a grotesque giant capable of tearing a child to shreds with a swat of his claw. With murder in his eyes, he throws his mug across the table. The chipped handle cuts my shoulder before shattering to the floor.

“No, you are not khaniis.” Saying the word khaniis, he turns his face up as if he smells fresh shit. “You are not like that. Tell me that. Say it.”

“I like men.”

His pounding fist rattles the table. The incense burner tips over, spilling charcoal and ash. Two cowry shells break off. As I hop up to run, Father yanks my chair from under the table. The knife drops. Now, all that I have left is my voice. He punches me in the side. The pain flips the room over on its head. I blink twice and realize I'm staring up at the ceiling. He straddles me, locking my arms in place. A glob of spit slips down my cheek to my neck. He smears his mucus and salt into my face as if cleansing me of my mortal sin. I clench down on my teeth to prepare for his knuckles. My mouth bleeds from the second and third punches. On the fourth blow, my nose bleeds. The next hit catches me in the ribs as I take a breath. I squeeze my fists, pushing the pain inward, to not scream.

“I will beat it out of you.”

“You asshole,” Junior yells and punches him in the face.

Father flops to the floor and crawls to the china cabinet. From beside it, he hurls the herder's headrest at Junior, striking him in the front of his leg. Hearing a whump sound against bone, I flinch in pain. Ricky runs, wailing, out of the room. A door slams, seconds later.

“What's wrong with you?” Junior yells.

“I told that woman not to eat so much sugar when she had you. She was addicted to pies, cakes, and cookies. That is how babies become sweet.”

“That's stupid,” Junior says.

“Khaniis burn in hell.”

“Why even say that nonsense?” Junior says.

“I am not talking to you.”

“What's so wrong with liking men?” Junior says.

“I will kill you after I kill him first.”

He charges straight. Junior slaps away his fist. His body transforms into a shield, with his hands stretching out to the side. I step where he steps, two steps to the left.

“Think about what is going to happen to you. You're going to die alone.”

“Like you,” Junior says. “The only person that loves you is Carsten. If you push him away, you'll be alone. I'll leave you the first chance I get.”

He pulls his head back to the right, slipping away from a punch. Furious and focusing his spite, Father stabs him in the chest with his finger, then points at me.

“Why would you want to live like a nasty animal?”

“Why can't you accept this?” Junior says.

“I'm still your son.”

“You are not my son anymore. I have two sons.”

Everything that I could say to Father, I swallow leaving him and Junior to wallow in the heaviness of hatred, misery, and love.

“Don't you dare. Only a woman would walk out this way,” Father yells.

I suck my teeth without thinking about it.

“Suck your teeth like a little girl.”

My faith in our Father dissolves down my body, into my feet, into the floor, freeing me.

“Fuck you. Go to hell.”

“Don't talk to me like that,” Father says.

“But you can say whatever you want.”

“That is not a life you want for yourself.”

“Yes, it is.”

“How do you know?”

“I know.”

“Have you had sex with a man?”

My throat tightens hearing the scraping sound as the nail rips from the wall. I follow the line from the ball of his shoulder to the point of the frame. Junior punches his hand – the photograph falls, smashing, to the ground – then he locks Father's arms behind his back.

“Leave my house right now.”

“No. Don't,” Junior says.

“Yes. Do. Leave. Dog.”

Thrashing as if possessed, he jerks his right arm away, and elbows Junior in the stomach. Junior bends at the knees, hugs himself, and vomits.

Being flung out onto the street was one of my fears. My fear was a flat country of plains and plateaus, red and brown, in the Horn of Africa, shaped like the rhino's horn. I could look at the future in the distance, which was a mirage of never-ending nightmares: prostitutes in Boystown, homeless boys my age, and feminine men with black eyes. Their recommendations were the same – do not say a word.

I try to look Father in the eye from where he is standing at the bottom of the stairs. He shakes his head the way men at Cecilia's church shake their heads, side-to-side, mm-hmming with their lips pressed tight together. Then, he looks away across from the stairs. My eyes follow his, at the framed print hanging up on the wall. The photograph is a glittering fireworks display, in a cloudless night sky, above the clock on State Street. The black Roman numeral dials turn the clock's face milk white. The
Chicago Tribune
printed it on the front-page on January 11, 1980. He shot it with his Diana camera. What I find fascinating about the photograph is how massive the clock appears. As a boy, I wanted to wake up and live in that dream world where magical fireworks crackle every night before bed.

The back of Father's church suit that he wore to the wedding reflects on the glass. As his suit disappears out the picture, into the living room, the despair I feel bends into a sadness deeper than I have ever felt. There is no mystery left. Here, I am homeless, parentless, futureless, traveling into the nameless nowhere. I am being betrayed, failed, broken, formed, and packed away, a one-wheeled suitcase pushed in the back of the closet of memory to collect dust.
Is there anything worse for a son than being forgotten by his Father?