“That’s awesome. And that’s what the Catholic Daughters have managed to do—write their names on the map of the world. They don’t need anybody’s permission to just dive in. And you know something, Ari, neither do we.”
We walked into the 7-Eleven. “My treat,” Cassandra said, as she reached for a Coke.
“No, I’ll get it.”
“No, you won’t. You know why guys like to pay? Because they have to be in charge. And when I say I’ll pay, you’re not supposed to get in an argument with me, you’re just supposed to say ‘thank you.’ ”
“Thank you,” I said.
“That’s a start. Next time say it with conviction.” We sat on the curb and smiled at each other.
“We’re loitering,” I said.
“Well, it’s a loitering kind of day.” She took a drink from her Coke.
“You know, we not only have to be smart enough to be cartographers—we also have to be brave enough to dive into waters that may not be very friendly.”
She looked me—to make sure I was listening. “We can do this. One of these days the world is going to be very surprised by the things we accomplish. But we won’t be. We won’t be surprised at all. Because we will have learned by then what we have in us.”
Cassandra Ortega’s voice was just what I needed in my life.
* * *
We were back at my house sitting on the front porch. Legs was sleeping between us.
“I think I’ll go for a run. You need a ride home?”
“What a great idea, Ari. What. A. Great. Idea.”
That’s the day Cassandra Ortega became my running partner.
I missed Legs running right beside me. That dog had wandered into my life at a time when I felt I was more or less alone in the world. Somehow she sensed my sadness and gave me her heart. People couldn’t give you the things a dog could give you—and I didn’t have the language to translate the love that lived in Legs, the love she gave me, the love that made me want to live again.
I’m not sure exactly why I let Cassandra into the private, silent world of running. But from that first morning, it seemed like it was right, like we fit. She was naturally athletic. And she was like me—she didn’t like to talk, not when she ran. She just wanted to run. Somehow the silence we kept as we ran brought us closer together.
In some ways, we were both lost. It’s funny, there were so many moments where I felt I had found myself or was finding myself. And then I felt lost again. For no reason. I just felt lost. Maybe it was that way for Cassandra, too. And we both found something we needed in the running.
I loved her silent presence in those moments. And they were sacred to me. I was starting to believe that we lived in different ways with each person that we loved.
Five
MY LIFE TOOK ON A kind of rhythm, the going to school, the talking to school friends that I’d never had before. School friends were good because you could leave them at school. That sounds mean, I know, but for me, my life was really crowded. I don’t think I could have handled one more take-home friend.
I had never really felt a part of this place called school. Now I did feel like I was a part of it. But then there was this thing that I was—this thing called gay. When did we start using that word? “Gay” was a word whose original meaning was associated with the word “happy.” I wondered how many gay men were actually happy. I wondered if someday, I would look in the mirror and say: Ari, I’m happy that you’re gay. I didn’t think that would ever happen. It might happen to Dante, but not to me. That made me feel as if I never could or would truly be a part of the country of high school. Dante called it “exile.” It was the perfect word. He gave me a note one day as he was leaving my house. “Oh, I forgot. I’ve been carrying this around,” he said. He put the folded note in the palm of my hand. When he left, I unfolded the note:
My mom said that we will always live between exile and belonging. Sometimes you’ll feel the loneliness of exile. And sometimes you’ll feel the happiness of belonging. I don’t know where my mom learned all the things she knows. And when I hear your mom’s words, and listen to the things she says, I swear they went to the same school for moms. They went to graduate school at Mom University—and it’s like they got their PhDs. P.S. I wrote this note in my history class. Only Brother Michael could make the Civil War sound boring.
* * *
I guess I was happy. Or at least I was happier than I’d ever been. And though there was a lot of confusion inside me, at least I wasn’t miserable. I went to school. I did my homework. Most of the time, Dante, Susie, Gina, and Cassandra came over and we studied at my kitchen table. I knew that made my mom happy—even though that wasn’t why we were studying together. Sometimes, we studied at Cassandra’s.
Tuesday nights, Dante and I studied together, just him and me. He would read his homework assignments or do his math problems and I would read and take notes or work on a paper. Somehow just being in the same room with Dante made everything seem a lot easier. I liked sensing his presence in the room. I liked listening to his voice when he talked to himself.
I noticed that Dante often took a break from studying his books—and studied me. I thought I was his favorite book. Which scared me. Sometimes, when he looked at me, it was like electricity shot right through me. And I wanted him. And there were times that my desire for him was insatiable. It wasn’t that we had a lot of sex. We didn’t. We couldn’t. There wasn’t the time or the opportunity, and we both refused to have sex in either of our parents’ houses because we felt it was disrespectful. But my want was beyond desire. Because what I felt transcended my own body.
What we had was safe. We made each other feel safe.
But the problem was that love was never safe. Love took you to places you had always been afraid to go. What the hell did I know about love? Sometimes, when I was in Dante’s presence, I felt that I knew everything there was to know about love. But, for me, to love was one thing. To let yourself be loved, well, that was the most difficult thing of all.
Six
Dante,
I’ve been thinking about my brother. When I went to the food bank with my mom, I overheard two of the women talking. They were saying nice things about me. One of them said that they were happy for my mother because I was such a good kid, not like my brother, who had a severe and chronic allergy to goodness. “Some people are just born that way,” she said.
I think my brother was and is a very violent man. That’s why Mom and Dad got so upset with me when they found out I beat the crap out of the guy who put you in the hospital. I shouldn’t have done that. I wasn’t sorry then—but I’m sorry now. But it doesn’t work both ways, of course: He wasn’t sorry he’d put you in the hospital. And if he had half a chance, he’d do it again. Sometimes I see him in the hallway, and once his friend was next to me at the urinal in the bathroom and he said, “Did you wanna have a look?” and I said, “Did you want me to stuff your balls down your throat?” People do not leave people alone. They can’t even live and let live. They just want to get rid of you.