Last Night I Sang to the Monster (30 page)

The thought entered into my head that I should get on the next plane and head back. The thought entered into my head that I should call Adam and tell him that I wasn’t going to make it if I didn’t get back there.

I’m not safe.

I’m lost again.

I sit down and rock myself and breathe. I make myself relax. I think of Susan and her voice and how she called me
brave boy.
I remember I have Adam’s cell phone. That makes me feel calm. If something goes wrong, I can just call him.

Okay. I’m okay.

I make my way to the baggage claim. I don’t walk fast. I feel the beating of my heart. I know
scared
is written there, on my heart.
Breathe, Zach, breathe.

I am picking up my luggage. I am looking around for the man who is supposed to pick me up.

I see a sign waving in the air that reads ZACHARIAH.

I see the face of the man who is holding the sign and I feel my feet running toward the man, running and running, not running away, but running toward. Running forward. I feel my arms reaching toward the man and embracing him and holding on to him. I am the owner of the happiest heart in all of God’s universe. “Rafael! Rafael! Is it really you? Is it really you?”

I feel his arms around me. I hear him whispering, “Yes, Zach. It’s me.”

The first thing I did when we arrived at Rafael’s house was call Adam. I don’t remember all the details of our conversation. He did ask me if I felt okay about living with Rafael. I heard something in his voice. “You think it’s a bad idea?” I asked.

I remember his answer. “I don’t know.” It was an honest I-don’t-know. That confused me.

Later I asked Rafael about that.

“Look, Zach,” Rafael said, “Adam isn’t responsible for what happens to us once we leave that place. He has to let go of us. He knows that. I think he understood that I was going to find you one way or another. And I also think he understood that you might not make it on your own. Adam, he’s a very ethical guy. And he knows there aren’t any guarantees in life. He knows the odds and they’re not in our favor. This may not be the best thing for either one of us. We’ll just have to see.”

That was six months ago.

I had a choice. I could go live at the halfway house or I could live with Rafael. And it was me who had to decide.

There are rules in our house. Not a lot of rules but a few.

I can’t stay out past eleven unless I check in with Rafael.

Everybody picks up after themselves.

Nobody drinks.

Nobody smokes—not in the house.

I guess you could say I have my own smoking pit in the back yard. Sometimes, when I go out there I think of Sharkey. I think of Amit. I think of Lizzie. I sometimes have imaginary conversations with them. I am
addicted to having imaginary conversations. I haven’t decided yet if this is healthy or unhealthy behavior.

Rafael is helping me to stay articulate. As in speaking. As in talking. As in expressing what I feel. Sometimes, as a joke and not a joke, Rafael looks across the table at me as we eat breakfast and says, “Check-in.” We both laugh and then I say something like this: “I’m Zach. I’m an alcoholic. No bad dreams and I’m going to make this a good day.”

Rafael looks at me and says. “I’m Rafael. I’m an alcoholic. And I am in love with my sobriety.”

We smile. We laugh.

We discuss things in our house. That’s another rule. Things must be discussed. For example: school. We discussed my predicament. We discussed the plan I had about going to college. Then, after all the discussing, Rafael asked me this one simple question, “When are you going back to school?”

“How about now?” I said.

It was my job to make all the arrangements. Part of that I-am-responsible-for-my-life thing. I still have this thing for A’s. Not everything has to change.

College. Wow. That thought really tears me up. It makes me want to cry. I guess there will always be a lot of tears inside me. Rafael wants to know why I think that’s such a bad thing. One day, when I was leaving for school, I found a note on the kitchen table from Rafael. And this is what it said:
Tears are for girls.
Then he’d crossed that out. And then he’d written;
Tears are for boys.

School. Wow. Who knows what college I’ll be going to. I’m making a list of schools. I was going to apply to twenty-five. Rafael looked at me with the same kind of snarky smile that Adam used to give me. Maybe Adam sent Rafael that smile—wireless.

“Okay,” I said, “I’ll apply to ten.”

Rafael said ten schools sounded reasonable.

Sometimes, when I look at my list of schools, I get that old feeling inside, that old feeling that says:
They won’t want you
. And then I have an imaginary conversation with Mr. Garcia and he says:
They’d be damned lucky to
have you, Zach
. Yeah, I’ll go with Mr. Garcia.

The house we live in is full of books and art and a kitchen that really stuns me out. Rafael has everything. A real kitchen gadget guy. I mean, the guy is all about cooking—which is really great because I really like to eat.

I like to watch him cook. “Watch and learn,” he says. So that’s what I do.

Rafael goes to meetings. He paints. I love his paintings—because they make me want to feel things. He’s writing a novel and he’s also working on some screenplay that his agent sent him. When he gets a script like that he calls himself a doctor. He gets a screenplay with problems and he fixes them. He turns a bad screenplay into a good one. Sometimes he doesn’t even get the credit. I don’t think that’s fair but Rafael doesn’t care. “I get paid, Zach. I don’t need my name on a screen.”

I go to meetings too. There’s a meeting for younger people. I like those meetings. But some of the guys in there are pissed-off as hell. I don’t think some of them are going to make it. But we’re all doing the one-day-at-a-time thing. And I think of what Rafael said when we both lived in Cabin 9, “If you can quit for a day, you can quit for a lifetime.” You know, sometimes I think that maybe these guys wouldn’t be so mad if they had an Adam or a Rafael or a Mr. Garcia in their lives. That’s the thought that enters into my head.

Rafael, he’s pretty calm these days. He listens to jazz. He hums, he laughs a lot. He sings.

Me too. I’m calm too. Except I don’t really sing.

Rafael and I, we’re both addicted to coffee and movies. We both like really serious movies.

At school, I always recognize the guys that are into drugs. One day, I really wanted to go up to a group of guys—and, you know, join them. But I didn’t. No use in looking for trouble.

Sometimes I get to thinking of all my old friends. It makes me sad to think of them. I have their numbers in my cell phone but I never call them. It makes me sad that I had to let them go.
But I do have to let them go
. A part of me will always love them. That’s okay, to love them.

I have some sober friends. I have to admit they’re kind of boring. But not all of them. And hey, I’m new at this.

I’m still working on my stuff. Doing the work never stops. I guess not.

Today, I’m having a very good day.

Some days are hard. Some days, I really want to get my hands on a bottle of bourbon. I mean, it’s like the thought of drinking bourbon takes over my feet and just wants to take me to a liquor store and hang out there until I find some guy to buy me a bottle. I talk to my sponsor. I talk to Rafael. Rafael says God helps keep him sober. Maybe God wrote
sober
on Rafael’s heart. Maybe he wrote
sober
on mine.

But today! Today is
not
a hard day. To begin with I had this great dream last night. The snow was falling softly and I was walking the labyrinth. I was completely naked and I wasn’t even cold. I was perfect. That’s how I felt. I felt like I was a perfect human being. I had never carried that word around inside me. It was as if I was living in summer even though it was winter. My heart didn’t have all those pieces of paper anymore—it had leaves. A thousand summer leaves. And as I kept walking toward the center of the labyrinth, it started snowing green leaves—just like in Rafael’s journal. The sky was brilliant blue and it was so amazing.

When I reached the center of the labyrinth, everyone was there: Mark and Lizzie and Annie and Sheila and Jodie and Maggie and Rafael and Sharkey and Amit and Adam.

Even my mom and dad and my brother. They were there. And they were all perfect and whole. They weren’t broken anymore. They all looked like angels.

When I woke up, I was crying.

This time the tears didn’t mean
sad
. They meant
happy
.

After writing down my dream, I studied the painting I’m working on. It’s a painting of me walking down a road. I have my heart in my hand and the road is leading to the sky. I remembered Adam had told me that anyone could have come along and erased the sketch I’d done in pencil. But this time, no one’s going to be able to erase me. No one.

After lunch, I’m going to leave school early. Rafael is going to pick me up and we’re going to the courthouse. Rafael, he’s going to adopt me. I guess the subject came up because I asked him if I could call him dad. I don’t know, but I have this thing inside me that needs to have a father. And
Rafael has this thing inside him that needs to have a son. Yeah, I know I just turned nineteen, yeah, I know that. But I guess a part of me is still a boy. I used to wig out about that because I thought that I shouldn’t feel that way. But I
do
feel that way. So, I’m going with what I feel.

I remember the day when I asked Rafael if I could call him dad. He didn’t say anything. He didn’t have any words in him. Tears in his eyes meant
Yes, you can call me dad
. You know, my dad, he’s dead. And I loved him and I’ll always love him. He did the best he could.

But I have Rafael now,
and he really is my dad.

I’ve decided that this is the good thing about God. He gives you second chances.

So this afternoon, I’m going to get a new name. I’m not going to be Zachariah Johnson Gonzalez anymore. I’m going to be Zachariah de la Tierra.

I am in love with my new name.

I’m remembering the old Zach. I’m looking in the mirror at the new Zach. My eyes are hazel. Today they look green.

I pick up my cell phone and decide to call Adam. I haven’t spoken to him for months. I press in his number and wait. His voice mail answers and I smile at the sound of his voice. I am leaving him a message. “Hey, Adam. It’s me, Zach. Remember the happiness scale? Today, I’ve reached a 10 on that scale. Wow! A 10! I woke up this morning and discovered God had written
happy
on my heart. Adam, I’m having a great day.”