Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (17 page)

And he said, “You’re gay,
vato
, you know that?”

What the hell was the guy talking about? I was gay because I didn’t want to shoot up heroin?

And then I said: “Yeah, I’m gay and I want to kiss you.”

And then he got this really disgusted look on his face and said: “I ought to kick your ass.”

And I said: “Go ahead.”

Then he just flipped me off and, and well, he just took off—which was okay with me. I mean, I sort of liked the guy before he got into all this mood-altering substance abuse thing and to tell myself the truth, I was really curious about the heroin thing, but, you know, I just wasn’t ready.

A guy has to be ready for important things. That’s how I saw it.

I got to thinking about Dante and how he’d had a few beers and I thought about the couple of beers I’d had with Gina and Susie and I wondered what it would be like to get drunk. I mean really drunk. I wondered if it felt good. I mean, Dante had even tried pot. I got to thinking about my brother again. Maybe he got into drugs. Maybe that’s why he was in the slammer.

I think I really loved him when I was a little boy.
I think I really did
. Maybe that’s why I felt sad and empty—because I’d missed him all my life.

I don’t know why I did what I did. But I did it. I went out and found an old drunk loitering around the Circle K in Sunset Heights, begging for money. He looked like hell and smelled even worse. But it’s not like I was interested in being his friend. I asked him to buy me a six-pack. I told him I’d buy him a six-pack too. He was game. I parked my truck around the corner. When he came out and handed me my six-pack, he smiled at me and said, “How old are you?”

“Sixteen,” I said. “You?”

“Me. I’m forty-five.” He looked a lot older. I mean the guy looked as old as dirt. And then I felt bad—for using the guy. But he was using me too. So that was the math on that one.

At first I started to drive out into the desert to drink my six-pack. But then I thought that maybe that wasn’t such a good idea. I kept hearing my mom’s voice in my head and it really pissed me off that her voice was there. So I just decided to go home. I knew my parents wouldn’t be home for a long time. I had all night to drink my beer.

I parked my truck in the driveway and just sat there. Drinking my beer. I let Legs in the truck with me and she tried to lick my beer can so I had to tell her that beer wasn’t good for dogs. Probably, beer wasn’t good for boys either. But, you know, I was experimenting. You know, discovering the secrets of the universe. Not that I thought I’d find the secrets of the universe in a Budweiser.

I got this idea into my head that if I chugged the first two or three beers then maybe I’d get a good buzz. And that’s exactly what I did. And it worked. It felt kind of nice, you know.

I got to thinking about things.

My brother.

Dante.

My dad’s bad dreams.

Ileana.

After chugging three beers I wasn’t feeling any pain. Sort of like morphine. But different. And then, I opened up another beer. Legs put her head on my lap and we just sat there. “I love you, Legs.” It was true. I loved that dog. And life didn’t seem so bad, me sitting there in my truck with my dog and a beer.

There were a lot of guys in the world that would have killed to have what I had. So why wasn’t I more grateful? Because I was an ingrate, that’s why. That’s what Gina Navarro said about me.
She was a smart girl. She wasn’t wrong about me.

I had my window rolled down and I felt the cold. The weather had changed and winter was coming. Summer hadn’t brought me what I wanted. I didn’t think winter would do me any better. Why did the seasons exist anyway? The cycle of life. Winter, spring, summer, fall. And then it began again.

What do you want, Ari?
That’s what I kept asking myself. Maybe it was the beer.
What do you want, Ari?

And then I answered myself: “A life.”

“What’s a life, Ari?”

“Like I know the answer to that?”

“Deep inside you know, Ari.”

“No, I don’t.”

“Shut up, Ari.” So I
did
shut up. And then the thought entered my head that I’d like to kiss someone. It didn’t matter who. Anyone. Ileana.

When I finished all my beers, I stumbled into bed.

I didn’t dream anything that night. Nothing at all.

OVER CHRISTMAS BREAK, I WAS WRAPPING SOME
Christmas gifts for my nephews. I went looking for a pair of scissors. I knew my mom kept a junk drawer in the dresser in the spare bedroom. So that’s where I went looking for them. And there they were, the scissors, right on top of an extra large brown envelope with my brother’s name written over the top.
BERNARDO
.

I knew that the envelope contained everything about my brother’s life.

A whole life in one envelope.

And I knew there were photographs of him in there too.

I wanted to rip it open but that’s not what I did. I left the scissors there and pretended I hadn’t seen the envelope. “Mom,” I asked, “Where are the scissors?” She got them for me.

That night I wrote an entry in my journal. I wrote his name again and again:

Bernardo

Bernardo

Bernardo

Bernardo

Bernardo

Bernardo

DEAR ARI,

I have this picture in my head of you lying on the bed of your pick-up looking up at all the stars. I have the sketch in my head. I’m sending you a picture of me standing next to our Christmas tree. And I’m sending you a gift. I hope you like it.

Merry Christmas, Ari.

Dante

When I opened the gift, I smiled.

And then I laughed.

A pair of miniature tennis shoes. I knew exactly what I was supposed to do with them. Hang them from my rearview mirror. And that’s exactly what I did.

THE DAY AFTER CHRISTMAS, I WORKED AN EIGHT-HOUR
shift at the Charcoaler. My dad let me pick up extra shifts since it was the Christmas break. I didn’t mind the job. Okay, there was this guy that I worked with who was a real jerk. But I just let him talk and most of the time he didn’t even notice that I wasn’t listening. He wanted to hang out after our shift and I said, “I got plans.”

“Date?” he said.

“Yup,” I said.

“Got a girlfriend?”

“Yup,” I said.

“What’s her name?”

“Cher.”

“Screw you, Ari,” he said

Some guys can’t take a joke.

When I got home, my mom was in the kitchen warming up some tamales for dinner. I loved homemade tamales. I liked to warm them up in the oven which was really strange because that wasn’t the standard way of warming up tamales. I liked the way the oven sort of dried out the tamales so they got a little crispy and you could smell
the corn leaves sort of burning and it smelled really great so my mom put some in the oven for me. “Dante called,” she said.

“Really?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s going to call you back in a while. I told him you were working.”

I nodded.

“He didn’t know you worked. He said you never mentioned anything about that in your letters.”

“Why does it matter?”

She shook her head. “Guess it doesn’t.” I knew she was doing some math in her head about this, but she was keeping the math to herself. That was okay with me. That was when the phone rang again. “It’s probably Dante,” she said.

It
was
Dante.

“Hi.”

“Hi.”

“Merry Christmas.”

“Did it snow in Chicago?”

“No. Just cold. And gray. I mean really cold.”

“Sounds nice.”

“I kind of like it. But I’m tired of the gray days. They say it will be worse in January. February too, probably.”

“That sucks.”

“Yeah, it does suck.”

There was a little silence on the phone.

“So you’re working?”

“Yeah, flipping burgers at the Charcoaler. Trying to save up some money.”

“You didn’t tell me.”

“Yeah, it’s not important. Just a shitty job.”

“Well, you’re not going to save too much money buying nice art books for your friends.” I could tell he was smiling.

“So you got the book?”

“I’m holding it in my lap.
Gericault’s Raft of the Medusa
by Lorenz E. A. Eitner. It’s a beautiful book, Ari.”

I thought he was going to cry. And I whispered in my own brain,
don’t cry don’t cry
. And it was like he heard me—and he didn’t cry. And then he said, “How many burgers did you flip to buy the book?”

“That’s a very Dante question,” I said.

“That’s a very Ari answer,” he said.

And then we started laughing and couldn’t stop. And I missed him so much.

When I hung up the phone, I felt a little sad. And a little happy. For a few minutes I wished that Dante and I lived in the universe of boys instead of the universe of almost-men.

I went out for a slow run. Legs and me. It’s true what they say that every guy should have a dog. Gina says every boy
is
a dog. That Gina. She was like my mother. I had her voice in my head.

Halfway through the run, it started to rain. The movie of the accident played through my brain. For a few seconds, there was a pain in my legs.

ON NEW YEAR’S EVE, I GOT CALLED IN TO WORK AT THE
Charcoaler. I was good with that. I didn’t have any plans and I didn’t feel like being in my head.

“You’re going in to work?” My mom wasn’t happy.

“Social interaction,” I said.

She shot me a look. “Everybody’s coming over.”

Yeah, the family thing. Uncles. Cousins. My mom’s menudo and more tamales. I was burnt out on tamales. Beer. Wine for my mom and my sisters. I wasn’t big on family gatherings. Too many intimate strangers. I smiled a lot, but really I never knew what to say.

I smiled at my mom. “1987. Glad that’s over.”

She shot me another look. “It was a good year, Ari.”

“Well, there was that small incident in the rain.”

She smiled. “Why is it so hard for you to give yourself some credit?”

“Because I’m like my father.” I raised my cup of coffee toward her in a toast. “Here’s to ’88. And to Dad.”

My mother reached over and combed my hair with her fingers. She hadn’t done that in a while. “You’re looking more and more like a man,” she said.

I raised my cup of coffee again. “Well, here’s to manhood.”

Work wasn’t so busy. The rain kept people away, so the four of us who were working took turns trying to sing our favorite songs of 1987. The Los Lobos version of “La Bamba” was my favorite, hands down. I couldn’t sing worth a damn so I sang it on purpose because I knew everyone would tell me,
don’t sing don’t sing
, which is exactly what they said. So I was off the hook. Alma kept singing “Faith.” Didn’t care for George Michael. Lucy kept pretending she was Madonna and even though she had a good voice, I was not into Madonna. Somewhere toward the end of the shift we all started singing U2 songs. “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For.” Yeah, that was a good song. My theme song. But really I thought it was everybody’s theme song.

At five minutes to ten, I heard a voice at the drive-in ordering a burger and fries. Gina Navarro. I’d know that voice anywhere. I couldn’t decide if I really liked her or I was just used to her. When her order was done, I took it out to her beat-up Volkswagen Beetle, where she and Susie Byrd were parked.

“You guys going out with each other?”

“Hardee-har, you asshole.”

“Happy New Year to you too.”

“You almost done?”

“We gotta clean up before I get off.”

Susie Byrd smiled. I gotta say she had a sweet smile. “We came to invite you to a party.”

“Party. I don’t think so,” I said.

“There’s beer,” Gina said.

“And girls you might want to kiss,” Susie said.

My own personal dating service. Just what I wanted for the new year. “Maybe,” I said.

“No maybes,” Gina said. “Loosen up.”

I don’t know why I said yes, but that’s just what I said. “Just give me the address and I’ll meet you there. I have to go home and tell my parents.”

I was hoping my mom and dad would say “no way.” But that’s not what happened. “You’re actually going to a party?” my mother said.

“Surprised that I’m invited, Mom?”

“No. Just surprised that you want to go.”

“It’s New Year’s.”

“Will there be drinking?”

“I don’t know, Mom.”

“You’re not driving your truck there. Period.”

“Guess I can’t go.”

“Where’s the party?”

“Corner of Silver and Elm.”

“That’s just down the street. You can walk.”

“It’s raining.”

“It stopped.”

My mom was practically throwing me out of the house. “Go. Have a good time.”

Shit. A good time.

And guess what? I
did
have a good time.

I kissed a girl. No, she kissed me. Ileana. She was there. Ileana. She just walked up to me and said, “It’s New Year’s. So Happy New
Year.” And then she just leaned into me and kissed me.

We kissed. For a long time. And then she whispered, “You’re the best kisser in the world.”

“No,” I said, “I’m not.”

“Don’t argue with me. I know about these things.”

“Okay,” I said, “I won’t argue with you.” And then we kissed again.

And then she said, “I gotta go.” And then she just left.

I didn’t even have time to take the whole thing in before Gina was standing in front of me. “I saw that,” she said.

“So fucking what?”

“How was it?”

I just looked at her. “Happy New Year.” And then I hugged her. “I have a New Year’s resolution for you.”

That made her laugh. “I have a whole list for you, Ari.”

We stood there laughing our asses off.