Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (18 page)

It was strange to have a good time.

ONE DAY, WHEN I WAS ALONE IN THE HOUSE, I OPENED
the drawer. The drawer with the large manila envelope marked
BERNARDO
. I wanted to open it. I wanted to know all the secrets that were contained there.

Maybe I would be free. But why wasn’t I free? I wasn’t in prison, was I?

I put the envelope back.

I didn’t want to do it this way. I wanted my mother to hand it to me. To say, “This is the story of your brother.”

Maybe I wanted too much.

DANTE WROTE ME A SHORT LETTER.

Ari,

Do you masturbate? I’m thinking you think that’s a funny question. But it’s a very serious question. I mean, you’re pretty normal. At least, you’re more normal than me.

So maybe you masturbate or maybe you don’t. Maybe I’m a little obsessed with this topic lately. Maybe it’s just a phase. But, Ari, if you do masturbate, what do you think about?

I know I should ask my dad about this, but I don’t feel like it. I love my dad—but do I have to tell him everything?

Sixteen-year-olds masturbate, right? How many times a week is normal?

Your friend,

Dante

It really made me mad that he sent that letter. Not that he wrote it, but that he sent it. I was really embarrassed by the whole thing.
I am not interested in having a conversation about masturbation with Dante.

I am not interested in having a conversation about masturbation with anyone.

What the hell was wrong with that guy?

JANUARY, FEBRUARY, MARCH, APRIL. THE MONTHS SORT
of ran together. School was okay. I studied. I worked out. I ran with Legs. I worked at the Charcoaler. I played hide-and-seek with Ileana. Or rather she played hide-and-seek with me. I just didn’t get her.

Some Friday nights, I’d drive my truck out into the desert after work. I’d lie in the bed of my pickup and look out at the stars.

One day I just flat out asked Ileana to go out on a date. I was tired of the flirting thing. It wasn’t working anymore. “Let’s just go to a movie,” I said. “You know, maybe hold hands.”

“I can’t,” she said.

“You can’t?”

“Not ever.”

“So why’d you kiss me then?”

“Because you’re good-looking.”

“That’s the only reason?”

“And you’re nice.”

“So what’s the problem?” I was beginning to figure out that Ileana was playing a game that I just didn’t like.

Sometimes she would come by the Charcoaler on Friday nights when I was closing up and we would sit in my pickup and talk. But we really didn’t talk about anything important. She was even more private than I was.

There was this prom thing coming up and I thought maybe I’d ask her to go. It didn’t matter that she’d turned me down already. And wasn’t she the one coming to see me at the Charcoaler? A couple of weeks before the prom, she showed up at the Charcoaler as I was closing up. We sat in my truck. “So you want to go the prom with me?” I said. I was trying to sound confident but I don’t think it came out exactly right.

“I can’t,” she said.

“Okay,” I said.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, it’s okay.”

“Don’t you want to know why, Ari?”

“If you wanted to tell me why, you’d tell me.”

“Okay, I’ll tell you why I can’t go.”

“You don’t have to.”

“I have a boyfriend, Ari.”

“Oh,” I said. I said it like nothing. “So I’m just, this, well, what am I, Ileana?”

“You’re a guy I like.”

“Okay,” I said. I heard Gina’s voice in my head.
She’s just toying with you
.

“He’s in a gang, Ari.”

“Your boyfriend?”

“Yeah. And if he knew I was here, something bad would happen to you.”

“I’m not afraid.”

“You should be.”

“Why don’t you just break up with him?”

“It’s not that easy.”

“Why?”

“You’re a good boy, you know that, Ari?”

“Yeah, well, that sucks, Ileana. I don’t want to be a good boy.”

“Well, you
are
. I love that about you.”

“Well, here’s the thing,” I said, “I get to be the good boy. And the gang guy gets the girl. I don’t like this movie.”

“You’re mad. Don’t be mad.”

“Don’t tell me not to be mad.”

“Ari, please don’t be mad.”

“Why did you kiss me? Why did you kiss me, Ileana?”

“I shouldn’t have. I’m sorry.” She just looked at me. Before I could say anything else, she got out of my truck.

On Monday, I looked for her at school. But I could never find her. I got Gina and Susie on the case. They were good detectives. Gina came back with a report, “Ileana dropped out of school.”

“Why?”

“She just did, Ari.”

“Can she do that? Isn’t it against the law or something?”

“She’s a senior, Ari. She’s eighteen. She’s an adult. She can do whatever she wants.”

“She doesn’t know what she wants.”

I found her address. Her dad’s number was listed in the book. I went to her house and knocked on her door. Her brother came out. “Yeah?” He just looked at me.

“I’m looking for Ileana.”

“What do you want her for?”

“She’s a friend. From school.”

“Friend?” He just kept nodding his head. “Look,
vato
, she got married.”

“What?”

“She got knocked up. She married the guy.”

I didn’t know what to say. So I didn’t say anything at all.

I sat in my truck that night with Legs. I kept thinking that I took this kissing way too seriously. I promised myself that I was going to become the world’s most casual kisser.

Kissing didn’t mean a damn thing.

DEAR ARI,

Seven to one. That’s the ratio of Dante Letters to Ari Letters. Just so you know. When I get back this summer, I’m going to take you swimming and drown you. Almost drown you. Then I’ll give you mouth-to-mouth and revive you. How does that sound? Sounds good to me. Am I freaking you out yet?

So on the business of kissing. This girl who’ve I’ve been experimenting with. I mean with the kisses. She’s a good kisser. She’s taught me a lot in that department. But she finally said to me, “Dante, I think that when you kiss me, you’re kissing someone else.”

“Yeah,” I said. “Guess so.”

“Are you kissing another girl? Or are you kissing a boy?”

I thought that was a very interesting and forward question.

“A boy,” I said.

“Anyone I know?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “I think I’m just making up a boy in my head.”

“Any boy?”

“Yeah,” I said. “A good-looking boy.”

“Well, yeah,” she said. “As good-looking as you?”

I shrugged. It’s nice that she thought I was good-looking. We’re friends now. And it’s nice because now I don’t feel like I’m leading her on. And anyway, she confessed to me that the only reason she liked kissing me at all those parties was because she was trying to make this guy she really likes jealous. That made me laugh. She said it wasn’t working. “Maybe he’d rather be kissing you than me,” she said. Ha, ha, I said. I didn’t know which guy she was talking about but to tell you the honest truth, Ari, even though it’s been a real trip hanging out with privileged Chicago kids who can afford lots of beer and liquor and pot, they’re really not all that interesting. Not to me anyway.

I want to go back home.

That’s what I told my mom and dad. “Can we go now? Are we done here?” Of course, my dad, who can be a real wise ass,
looks me straight in the eyes and says: “I thought you hated El Paso? Isn’t that what you said when I told you we were moving to El Paso? You said: “Just shoot me, Dad.”

I know what he was after. He wanted me to say I was wrong. Well, I looked right back at him and said: “I was wrong, Dad. Are you happy?”

He gets this grin on his face. “Happy about what, Dante?”

“Happy that I was wrong?”

He kissed me on the cheek and said, “Yeah, I’m happy, Dante.”

The thing is I love my dad. My mom too. And I keep wondering what they’re going to say when I tell them that someday I want to marry a boy. I wonder how that’s going to go over? I’m the only son. What’s going to happen with the grandchildren thing? I hate that I’m going to disappoint them, Ari. I know I’ve disappointed you too.

I’m a little worried that we won’t be friends when I get back. I guess I have to deal with these things. I hate lying to people, Ari. I especially hate lying to my parents. You know how I feel about them.

I guess I’m just going to tell my dad. I have this little speech. It starts something like this. “Dad, I have something to say to you. I like boys. Don’t hate me. Please don’t hate me. I mean,
Dad, you’re a boy too.” The speech doesn’t really fit together very well. It needs some work. It sounds too needy. I hate that. I don’t want to be needy. Just because I’m playing for the other team doesn’t mean that I’m this pathetic human being who’s begging to be loved. I have more self-respect than that.

Yeah, I know, I’m droning on and on. Three more weeks and I’ll be home. Home. Another summer, Ari. You think we’re too old to play in the streets? Probably. Maybe not. Look, I just want you to know that I don’t want you to feel like you have to be my friend when I get back. I’m not exactly best-friend material, am I?

Your friend,

Dante

P.S. It would be very weird not be friends with the guy who saved your life, don’t you think? Am I breaking the rules?

ON THE LAST DAY OF SCHOOL, GINA ACTUALLY GAVE
me a compliment. “You know all that working out has turned you into a hunk.”

I smiled at her. “That’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me.”

“So how are you going to celebrate the beginning of summer?”

“I’m working tonight.”

She smiled. “So serious.”

“You and Susie going to a party?”

“Yeah.”

“Don’t you get tired of parties?”

“Don’t be stupid. I’m seventeen, you idiot. Of course I don’t get tired of parties. You know what, you’re an old man trapped in the body of a seventeen-year-old guy.”

“I won’t be seventeen until August.”

“It gets worse.”

We both laughed.

“You want to do me a favor?” I said.

“What?”

“If I go out to the desert and get plastered tonight, will you and
Susie drive me back home?” I didn’t even know I was going to say that.

She smiled. She had a great smile. A really great smile.

“Sure,” she said.

“What about your party?”

“Watching you loosen up, Ari. That’s a party. We’ll even score the beer for you,” she said. “To celebrate the end of school.”

Gina and Susie were waiting for me on my front steps when I got home from work. They were talking to my mom and dad. Of course they were. I cursed myself for telling them to meet me at my house. What the hell was I thinking? And I didn’t even have an explanation.
Yeah, Mom, we’re going out to the desert and I’m going to get shit faced.

Gina and Susie were cool, though. No hint of the beer they said they were going to score. They played good girls to my parents. Not that they weren’t good girls. That’s exactly what they were: good girls who wanted to pretend they were bad girls but who never would be bad girls because they were too decent.

When I drove up, my mom was ecstatic. Not that she behaved ecstatically. But I knew that look.
Friends at last! You’re going to a party!
Yeah, okay, I really did love my mom. My mom. My mom who knew Gina’s parents, who knew Susie’s parents, who knew everybody. Of course she did.

I remember changing clothes in my room and washing up. I remember staring at myself in the mirror. I remember whispering, “
You are a beautiful boy
.” I didn’t believe it—but I wanted to.

So the first people to enter into my truck other than Legs and my mother and father, were Gina Navarro and Susie Byrd. “You guys are breaking in my virgin truck,” I said. They rolled their eyes—then just laughed their asses off.

We stopped at Gina’s cousin’s house and picked up an ice chest full of beer and Cokes. I let Gina drive to make sure she knew how to drive a stick shift. She was a pro. She drove better than I did. Not that I told her. It was a perfect night and there was still some coolness in the desert breeze, the heat of the summer was still a step away.

Me and Susie and Gina sat in the bed of my truck. I drank beer and looked up at all the stars. And I found myself whispering, “Do you think we’ll ever discover all the secrets of the universe?”

I was surprised to hear Susie’s voice answering my question. “That would be a beautiful thing, wouldn’t it, Ari?”

“Yeah.” I whispered, “Really beautiful.”

“Do you think, Ari, that love has anything to do with the secrets of the universe?”

“I don’t know. Maybe.”

Susie smiled. “Did you love Ileana?”

“No. Maybe a little bit.”

“Did she break your heart?”

“No. I didn’t even know her.”

“Have you ever been in love?”

“Does my dog count?”

“Well, counts for something.” We all laughed.

Susie was nursing a Coke as I drank beer after beer. “Are you drunk yet?”

“Sort of.”