Carry Me Like Water (34 page)

August 12, 1992

Joaquin told me to bring him flowers today. He said it was the Day of the Dead. I told him it wasn’t November yet, but he wouldn’t hear of it. “No, no, it’s the Day of the Dead—and I’m mostly dead, so bring me flowers.” I didn’t argue with him. I told him I’d bring the flowers. Joaquin and I have been speaking a lot of Spanish to each other. Me and my perfect pronunciation of that language. And it’s mine, that language, mine, and yet it’s no more mine than English. I don’t feel Mexican. I don’t feel American, either. I’m disoriented and disjointed and fragmented
lately. I hate all these confusions. I want to go to a place where I’m pure, where I’m certain

The night Maria Elena had her baby, I dreamed about his birth. In the dream, we were all celebrating in a huge room. It was like New Year’s, and amid all the laughter—and Eddie’s smile—his son started to grow up right in front of us. Right then and there, he turned into a young man. When I spoke to him, he shook his head. And then I spoke to him in sign language, and he spoke back to me. We spoke to each other for hours, our hands dancing like leaves falling from all the elm trees in the world. When I woke up the next day, I called Eddie and left a message on the machine. He called back and told me the baby was perfect. But I know he isn’t. I know what the silence meant. But there was another man in the room, and I remembered him when I spoke to Eddie on the phone and I knew that man’s name—Diego—and he looked just like Maria Elena. And I know I’m going to meet him.

I went to speak to the priest at Mission Dolores. I told him everything about what’s been happening to me. I told him about leaving my body, about reading minds, about seeing things in the future. I seemed to need to tell him that I didn’t believe in God. I didn’t have to ask him if he believed me—I could read him easily. He believed every word. He wanted to know if I was going to be all right. I told him I didn’t know. I told him I was scared. I told him the world had changed, and I didn’t know how to change with it. He smiled. And when I cried, he held me, and he told me I would learn to live a new life. He seemed so certain.

Joaquin keeps lingering. It’s as if he’s doing a slow fade. Every day he grows a little paler. I sometimes think he’ll turn into a ghost before he disappears. He seems to always take care of all of us, instead of us taking care of him. And I’m sitting here in this cold summer night wondering why it’s the dead and the dying who are always remembering the living. When will the living learn about the dead? When will the living learn about the dying?

Lizzie opened the door before the doorbell rang and smiled at her mother as she stood in the dark hallway of the apartment building.

“You knew I was standing here?”

Lizzie smiled, “I didn’t want to make you wait out here—too cold.” She took her mother by the arm and pulled her into her living room. She kissed her, then kissed her again. “Coffee?” she asked.

The old woman looked into her daughter’s face as if she were afraid that face would soon be disappearing. “It’s cold—even for a San Francisco summer. It’s warm in here, though.”

“Too warm?”

“No, it’s nice—wonderful. My circulation isn’t what it used to be.” Elizabeth listened to her as she walked into the kitchen. Her mother slopped talking.

“Keep talking,” she said, “I’m listening.”

“I don’t like to yell through walls,” she said.

“Oh Mom, it’s not angry yelling, it’s just talking yelling.” She walked back into the room holding two mugs of coffee. She handed one to her mother. “Just like you like it—black and bitter.”

Her mother smiled appreciatively as she sipped on the coffee. “You make good coffee.”

“So are you going to tell me why you’ve come to visit your daughter?”

“Do I need a reason?”

“Mom, I can count on one hand the number of times you’ve visited me. If you just felt like talking, you’d have called me on the phone.” She squeezed her mother’s hand. “So what’s the occasion?”

“You tell me—you knew I was at the door. You’re gifted, no?”

“I can’t read minds at will, Mama, it just happens sometimes.”

“Have you left your body lately?”

Lizzie shrugged her shoulders. “I’m learning to control that one.”

“Where did you go last night?”

“How did you know I had one last night?”

“Maybe I’m gifted, too.”

“Seriously, Mama.”

“Seriously? You look too thin.”

“I look too thin and you’ve been talking to Maria Elena.”

“I still call her Helen.”

“You’re so stubborn, Mother—it’s not a real name.”

She looked straight into Lizzie’s eyes and smiled. “You don’t seem to mind
your name
, and it’s not real either—and me? I’m not your
real
mother—you don’t seem to mind that either.”

Lizzie sipped on her coffee. “I like Lizzie just fine. And, Mama, you’re as real as I need.” She let out a laugh, calm. “You sure it’s not too strong for you?” Her mother shook her head. “You’re real to me, Mama—and you shouldn’t have driven all this way in this cold. I would have been happy to drive to Palo Alto.”

“You hate Palo Alto—and the drive did me good. I’m not on my deathbed, you know—and I needed to get away from Sam. You don’t look like you’re getting enough sleep.”

“What did Maria Elena tell you?”

“She said you looked too thin and that you were working too hard for no money. Who are those boys, anyway?”

“They’re not boys, Mother, they’re men. And one of them is dying.”

“And Elizabeth Nightingale has to stick her nose in everybody else’s business.”

“Mama, this isn’t negotiable.”

“What if you—what if—”

“And AIDS is hard to get—if that’s what you’re worried about. You didn’t come here to lecture me about that, did you?”

“You quit your job, you go and practically live with two gay men, you start talking about revolutions, you start losing your interest in sex, you start reading people’s minds, and you leave your body every Tuesday and Thursday. What the hell are the people who love you supposed to think?”

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

M
ARY 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.”