Carry Me Like Water (8 page)

Lately, he had begun to regret that he had not attended his parents’ funeral. If he’d gone, he could have spit on their graves; if he’d gone, he could have danced around the polite high church Episcopalian crowd, spewing all the family secrets;
if he’d gone, he would have seen his brother.
At the time, he hadn’t thought of his brother, hadn’t thought of anything. He had gone completely insane, completely
unconscious. His body had taken control because his mind had left—left, perhaps, because it could not handle the weight of a life it was supposed to rule, and unable to rule it, had opted for the painlessness of chaos. When he heard the news of his parents’ death, he felt a surge of exhilaration, a kind of orgasm that left a smell and an aftertaste of having made love to someone repulsive and detestable and irredeemably ugly. That smell was still a part of his own body—and sometimes he could still detect its faint odor. He suddenly felt free of the people who had brought him into the world and raised him. The only thing that prevented him from yelling out his joy was the rage of having been born their son. Sometimes, he could hear their voices in the words he spoke. He remembered reading about their deaths in the newspaper:
HEIRESS KILLS SLEEPING HUSBAND, KILLS SELF
. He Could Still picture the headlines; they had become a part of him just as that ink had become a part of that newspaper. He drank for days, weeks, months. He had no memory of how he had survived. It was as if he had died and been raised back to life. An old friend had found him lying on the street, an old friend who, by chance and in a moment of compassion, looked down at his blank and anonymous body and had miraculously seen a man with a name and commanded him back to the fields where people worked and played and laughed. After his mind had come back, he had locked his parents in the part of him that could not make words, the part of him that no one was allowed to see or touch—except Joaquin. Joaquin had touched every part of him—even the part where he kept his parents. When Joaquin died, he knew that his final days or weeks or months would be heavy and inconsolable and his days would be without light. Maybe he would take to the bottle again and walk out into a cold and barren field that was far away from everyone and praise it for its solitary existence—and cut himself until he bled rivers.

Joaquin opened his eyes and stared blankly around the room. He sat up slowly.

Jacob smiled at him. “Tired?”

“Not as tired as yesterday. I had a dream.” There was still sleep in his voice.

“You wanna talk about it?” he whispered.

“I don’t remember exactly. Someone was chasing me.”

“Jesse Helms.”

Joaquin laughed. “No—someone I knew.” He thought a moment, and Jacob could see he was trying to piece his dream together. He shook his head. “I can’t remember. It doesn’t matter, does it, Jake?”

“No. It doesn’t matter.”

Joaquin stretched his arms and grunted. “How come you let me sleep on the couch?”

“You were tired. I didn’t have the heart to move you.”

“I’d have rather slept with you.”

“Who wouldn’t?” Jacob smiled. “Take your medicine.”

Joaquin shook his head. “Jake—I can’t—not today.”

“Joaquin—don’t. We’ve been through this a thousand times.”

“That shit is poison. I’ll die of it.”

“I can’t take this today. Let’s not do this—I can’t—” He covered his ears with his palms.

Joaquin sat a moment and watched him. He walked over to the cabinet, showed his medicines to his lover, smiled, and took his daily dose. “Ummmmm. That was gooooood. Sabrosisimo. Are you happy now, gringo?”

Jacob kept himself from smiling. He crossed his arms and locked his hands under his armpits. Joaquin walked up and stood behind the chair where he was sitting. He kissed the top of his head. “I know you’re dying to laugh.”

“Am not.”

“Are too.”

“Am not.”

“How old are we?”

“Nine. We’re nine.”

“Nine, Jake? Nine?
I
couldn’t get it up when I was nine. Can’t we at least be sixteen?”

Jacob smiled. “Late bloomer, huh?”

“Well, I made up for lost time when I reached sixteen.”

“OK. We’re sixteen.”

Joaquin kissed him on the top of the head again. “I’m going to hop in the shower.” He walked out of the room and down the hall. Jake stared at the couch where Joaquin had slept. He remembered
the first time he saw him, just standing there by himself like a beautiful silk shirt hanging over an empty chair. He had wanted to reach out and touch. He had seen him many times before he had spoken to him. He had taken it for granted that Joaquin had noticed him, too—noticed him because everyone noticed him—at least noticed his looks, his body, his masculine presence. But if Joaquin had taken note of him, that fact was not detectable in his face. He’d asked him if he could buy him a drink.

“No, gringo,” he said, “I don’t want a drink.”

Jacob had immediately noticed his voice—a voice that was calm, comfortable, and free of any discernable rage. “You don’t drink? Or you don’t like gringos?”

“Oh, I drink.”

“But not with gringos?”

“They’re too used to being liked—they expect it.”

“Not all of us are that superior.”

“No—
but you are.”

When he’d said that, something had shot through him, and he had wanted to strike out at him—to bust his jaw—to put a mark on his dark and perfect face.

“I can practically taste your hate, gringo.”

“I have a name, godamnit!”

“So do I,” he’d said quietly. “My name is Joaquin.” He’d walked away. As Jake sat there remembering, all the confusing feelings came back, as if he had stepped back into the past. “You arrogant sonofabitch!” That’s what he’d yelled at him. Joaquin hadn’t even bothered to turn around and acknowledge his presence. He remembered how he’d just sat there and gotten drunk and picked some guy up and took him home—and forgot him almost as soon as their sex was finished.

A week later, he had seen Joaquin sitting on a park bench, drinking a cup of coffee from a Styrofoam cup and smoking a cigarette. He pretended to himself that all he wanted to do was hit the sonofabitch. He walked by him, and pretended not to notice he was sitting there. “Hey, gringo,” Joaquin said, “want to get laid?”

“What’s the difference between now and the other night?” he’d muttered.

“The difference is that
I
need the money.”

He’d walked away without answering. Joaquin had run after him, smiled at him, and laughed, “Gringo, how come you let people push your buttons?” He remembered grabbing him by the collar: “My name is Jake—you got that?”

Joaquin had simply smiled, unafraid of the physical strength of the man that had him by the collar. Jake had grabbed him by the arm and pulled him home. He remembered undressing him, he remembered everything about the first time he’d held Joaquin’s body, and how he had wanted to be violent, but wound up touching him softly as if he were a rare and fragile thing, “How old are you?” Joaquin had asked him. “I’m thirty,” Jake said. “How old are you?” “Nineteen.” After a few weeks of endless sex and endless talk, Joaquin disappeared back into the city. After two months, Jacob had given up looking for him; he swore to himself that if Joaquin ever showed up on his doorstep again he’d kick his ass all the way back to Mexico. About six months later, Joaquin knocked at his door.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Jake said. He was more hurt than angry—but no matter how much he tried, his hurt always came out as anger.

“My mother was sick,” he said. “I went back to Mexico to see her.” Joaquin swallowed hard and looked down at the floor. “I had to bury her,” he whispered. He sat down on the stairway outside his house. When Jacob had reached out to touch him, he began to shake and say things as if he might die if he did not say them. Jake was not sure Joaquin was aware of the words that were coming out of his mouth: “As long as she was alive, Mexico was still mine—somehow it was still mine. Now, it’s not mine, but here is not mine either. So where do I go, gringo? Cuando uno está perdido ¿dónde se va? I used to send her money. Soy huérfano ¿sabes? Soy huérfano.” Jake had not understood what the word huérfano meant, but he understood that the word carried a weight and a sadness that he had also carried, and he understood that Joaquin was lost, and when he began to cry, he held him, and the young man in his arms howled as if he were nothing more than an animal, an alien being who, despite losing his capacity for speech, had not lost his capacity
to feel pain. Jacob had carried him inside as if he were a baby, and when at last Joaquin had been able to speak, all he was able to say was: “Gringo, don’t hurt me.”

They had been together for twelve years and Jake no longer knew what it was about Joaquin that had made him such a necessary part of his life—whether it was his lover’s body, his intelligence, his sense of humor, his awful pride. When they had met, he was still something of a boy—and he had remained something of
a
boy. He had never stopped attending Mass on Sundays, had refused to give God over to the straights and the gringos and the Protestants because he said, “They don’t own him—he is not theirs.” Jacob had never understood that side of him. Once, while watching his lover nurse a dying friend, it occurred to him that the man he had fallen in love with was good, was decent. He had never consciously thought about “good” until then, and since becoming aware of it, he began wondering about himself. He didn’t think of himself as being good. He understood pain and he understood pleasure, and he had decided that his life, whatever else it was or meant, was dedicated to the avoidance of pain, and the pursuit of pleasure. But as he sat in his house staring at the couch where Joaquin had slept all night, he realized he loved this man, and his love was no longer the mere pursuit of pleasure. He sat there remembering, remembering everything. It was good to have a memory. “J, I want to go first. Let me be the first to go.”

La Jolla, California. 1968

Jacob walked through the door of the living room and hung up his red letter jacket in the entryway closet. He ran upstairs and dumped out his duffel bag, his dirty football jersey and cleats falling on the floor. He lay down on his bed. He focused on his body. He was proud of it; he’d worked hard to sculpt a body that was perfect, and sometimes he could hardly believe it belonged to him. He rubbed his chest with his palm and reached for one of the magazines he kept under his mattress. He was surprised when he felt nothing there. He jumped out of the bed and lifted up the mattress. “Not there! Oh, shit! Oh shit!”

He lay shaking in his bed the rest of the afternoon until it was time for him to go down to dinner. He relaxed a little when he remembered his parents were having company. If his parents had found his magazines, they would not bring up the issue in front of guests. He would excuse himself, and go out for the evening—and think of what to say, what to say?—but what was there to be said? The magazines, full of pictures of nude men, said everything simply and plainly. Maybe Esperanza had found them when she changed the sheets to his bed, maybe she had thrown them away without mentioning it to his parents. Maybe it would be all right. But he knew Esperanza would not have touched anything that did not belong to her.

He made sure he went downstairs after the guests had arrived. His mother and father acted the same way they always acted when they had guests—they pretended to be fun and interesting and kind people. The only time his mother and father touched each other was when they had guests in the house. When they were alone, they either did not acknowledge each other or they argued. He found it odd that they became such strong allies whenever he challenged either one of them. They always jumped to each other’s defense. Jacob had decided that being married was like being in a club—and that he was a threat to that club—or, at least, that was the way his parents treated him.

He recognized the two couples who were his parents’ guests. He greeted them warmly. He smiled and glanced over at his parents. They smiled at him. “Where’s Jon-Jon?” he asked.

“
Your brother’s sick,” his mother said. “They called me from school, so I sent the car. When he got home, the poor thing was burning up.”

“
Maybe I should go up and see him,” Jacob said. He started toward the hallway. His mother stopped him.

“
He’s sleeping, dear. He really needs to rest. Maybe you should wait until tomorrow.” She looked over at one of her friends. “He’s a very devoted brother.”

“
Yes,” his father nodded.

He didn’t like the tone in his parents’ voices.

He was sorry Jon-Jon was not at dinner. Without him, the evening seemed endless. He tried to shut out the voices of the people who were sitting at the table. Something in the way they sat and ate and spoke betrayed the fact that they believed in only one thing: that the world
belonged to them—that they were entitled to it, entitled to use it, to poison it, to dominate it. Their codes were easy to read. He knew he would not live his life like them, and as he sat there he was grateful he was gay—that separated him, set him apart, made him different from them. Their lives made him sick. Already he had inherited his parents’ contempt without even knowing it.