Five Boroughs 01 - Sutphin Boulevard (24 page)

When I ventured out of my room, the floorboards were cold against my bare feet. The house had always been drafty, but this winter was phenomenally cold. Rubbing my hands together, I jogged down the stairs and called out for my brother.

As soon as I spoke, I regretted it. There were people in the kitchen, and I’d just outed myself as being awake and in their proximity.

“Michael, ven acá.”

What the hell was Aida doing here?

I took a step backward, ready to flee, but I froze at the familiar rumble of a deep voice.

Nunzio.

Wariness turned into irritation. I charged into the kitchen and found them all huddled around the counter. Aida, John, Jackie, and Nunzio. My weasel of a little brother hovered in the back doorway, looking like he was ready to bolt from his own party.

“What the hell is going on?”

Nunzio took a step away from the rest of my family and looked at the floor. When Jackie had a similar reaction, my suspicions heightened.

“¿Qué está pasando aquí?” I speared Raymond with a vicious look. “Is this some kind of intervention? Are you serious, Ray?”

“No. I don’t know.”

“Then what the fuck are they doing here?”

“Cálmate, Michael,” John said in a warning voice.

“Why are they here?” I jutted my chin at Nunzio. “And you had to drag him into this too for ultimate humiliation?”

Nunzio stopped studying his sneakers and met my accusatory glare.

“Don’t get pissed at Ray,” he said, tone sharp where I’d expected him to sound contrite. “He just doesn’t know what to do.”

“Maybe he should grow the hell up and figure it out without calling in the damn cavalry.”

Raymond reddened. “I’ve been trying to talk to you, but you don’t even be coming downstairs for a couple days at a time. For all I know, you’re up there planning to fucking kill yourself.” The last bit came out shaky. He crossed his arms over his chest. “If I thought you cared about my opinion, I wouldn’t need no cavalry.”

I didn’t know if I wanted to sigh in disgust or shake him. His self-esteem had to be nonexistent if he thought I’d listen to John before him.

“You know what, Raymond? Maybe you wouldn’t think that if you’d acted like an adult
before
both our parents died.”

Raymond recoiled, and I cursed myself.

“Michael!”

Jackie grabbed Raymond’s hand to console him, and Aida nailed me with the kind of glare that, as a child, would have had me scampering around a corner to dodge a flying chancleta. We were long past those days, but I could practically hear her powering up for a lecture.

“This is bullshit,” I said. “Where was the intervention when you were all pouring the drinks while my father sautéed his liver?”

“You are not your father.” Aida moved around the side of the counter. “It was too late for him—”

“Too late?” I demanded, incredulous. “He spent every year of my life sweating out alcohol. And it wasn’t like he was a functioning alcoholic. You people had plenty of time to intervene. So I don’t understand why that was acceptable, but you want to break my fucking balls when I’m the only one in this family who has ever made anything of themselves.”

“That’s why we want to help you,” Jackie said, still hanging on to Raymond, even though he was clearly trying to escape. “You’re so smart and ambitious—”

“Obviously not if I’m in this situation.”

Jackie clammed up. Like Raymond, her face lapsed into a whipped puppy expression, but this time I felt no compassion.

“You know what? Fine.” I grabbed a barstool from the counter and sat down. I waved my hand. “Empieza con la mierda.”

John heaved a disgusted sigh. I wondered why he’d even come. After his initial show of compassion at the hospital, he’d wasted no time adopting his usual contempt for me.

“Mijito—”

I cut Aida off before she could go any further. “No soy tu hijito.”

“Okay.” Aida marched up to me and jabbed a finger into my face. “You cannot go on the way you are. The alcohol and drugs are out of control.”

I nearly laughed. If that was her opening, I couldn’t wait for the main argument.

“He doesn’t do drugs.”

“Oh?” Aida whipped around to stick her finger at Nunzio. “His brother says he takes pills.”

“Yeah, for anxiety. He isn’t—”

John scoffed. “Anxiety.”

“Yes.” Nunzio crossed his arms over his chest. “Anxiety.”

They stared each other down until Aida decided their standoff had interrupted her rant enough. The woman was like a runaway freight train once she got started.

“I know your life has not been easy, Michael. You lost both parents too soon, but you can’t go on like this. It’s dangerous and you should set a better example—”

“Titi, stop,” Jackie interrupted.

“No.” John’s lip was still curled, dark eyes still trained on Nunzio. “If he acts like a child, he can be treated like one.”

“Cada quién sufre a su manera,” Jackie insisted. “Stop being so negative!”

There was something to be said about the fact that my family couldn’t get their shit together long enough to stop bickering and focus on my intervention.

Aida took a breath and tried another tactic. “Michael. My point is this: you don’t need to drink. You don’t need to go on like this. Tu suerte cambiará. Tienes a tu familia.”

Her words sounded genuine, but I couldn’t stop watching as John looked between Nunzio and me, and the ugly curl of his mouth.

“Aparte de Raymond, no tengo familia. And he’s a grown man. I don’t need to set any examples for him that I haven’t tried and failed to set already.” I raised one shoulder in a tight shrug. “I appreciate what you’re trying to do, Titi, and you, Jackie, but it’s not going to work right now. And all of you sitting there judging me isn’t going to change anything, since I’m just keeping with the family tradition of drinking myself to death.”

This time it was John who spoke. “Tu madre estaría avergonzada.”

The Spanish seemed to translate for Nunzio. He winced, and out of the corner of my eye, I saw Raymond tense.

In the past I would have exploded, but this time I didn’t feel the rush of anger that would normally lead to fireworks. I stood up and leaned across the counter with my best impression of a Joseph Rodriguez razorblade smile.

“Maybe. But all of you, her included, would think a lot of things about my life are shameful. Like the fact that I never bring home women because I’m gay.”

Aida covered her mouth with her hand. Her expression was more startled than surprised. John, on the other hand, just smiled coldly.

“As if we didn’t know?”

“Or,” I added, leaning closer, “that I was sucking dick way before Nunzio. I started with your buddy Kevin the day of my junior high graduation. I swallowed his come while you were all outside grilling and dancing to salsa.”

John’s eyes went round, but before he could say anything, I grabbed the sides of his face and laid a sloppy kiss on his mouth. He threw himself backward with a horrified shout. Maybe he thought traces of Kevin were still on my lips.

“Maricón asqueroso,” he spat, jerking his forearm across his mouth.

“That’s right. I’m a disgusting faggot. Always have been, always will be. Now all of you can get the hell out of my house.”

It didn’t take them long. As the kitchen emptied, Aida would no longer make eye contact with me. Jackie offered a discreet wave, but her face lacked animation. It wasn’t surprising, considering I’d just accosted her father. He would probably have some kind of gay-stemmed PTSD for the rest of his life.

“Is that shit true about Kevin?” Raymond demanded when we were alone in the kitchen with Nunzio.

“Yeah.”

“So that dude is like a pedo?”

“I didn’t realize it at the time, but yeah, I guess so. I was only fourteen.”

As a teenager I’d fooled around with so many older men that I’d stopped thinking about it in terms of legality. It was a strange realization considering how protective I was of my students. If any of them behaved the way I had as a kid, I would have a fit.

Raymond shuddered. “That’s disgusting.”

“Yeah, no shit.”

I looked between him and Nunzio, wondering why I wasn’t angrier. I’d intended to ream them for setting me up, or at least not trying to talk to me alone before calling in the rest of the family, but the energy required to fuel additional outrage was already draining away.

“I’m going back to bed.”

“Mikey, wait.”

“Bro, stop—”

Nunzio and Raymond both moved forward simultaneously. I edged away from them with the wariness of a cornered animal.

“I just want to sleep. I understand that neither of you apparently know me well enough to have anticipated that shitshow, but I’m done talking about my failings as an adult.”

“No one thinks that,” Raymond said. “But you gotta look at it from my point of view. You think you’re the only one who’s fucked in the head right now? It’s bad enough that… that every night I think about how I stood there talking to Dad, not even realizing he was dead. I was being a dick, telling him to get his lazy ass up, and he was dead.”

I flinched. “I had no idea….”

“I know, because I didn’t tell nobody.” Raymond’s voice cracked on the last syllable, but he shrugged off Nunzio’s hand, turning away. “My point is that I get it. I know how you feel, but you can’t fucking die on me too. It’s not fair. And I don’t give a shit if you think that makes me sound like a dumbass kid.”

How was it possible that before this moment I had not realized how worn and frayed around the edges Raymond looked? At some point in the past few weeks he had lost weight and stopped sleeping enough for circles to darken his eyes, but I hadn’t noticed.

“I would never do that to you, Ray.”

“Yeah, maybe not on purpose, but you pop bars with vodka chasers. It’d be real easy for you to just not wake up one day.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“How the hell do you know? Pops thought he was invincible too, and look how that turned out.”

I had no defense for that argument.

“I’ll get it together soon.”

Raymond shook his head, still facing away.

“I have no choice. I go back to work in a week.”

“All right, man. Whatever.”

“Ray, I’m not going anywhere. I’m not going to die just because I’ve been on a two-week bender. I’m just….” All of a sudden it felt like I was talking through cotton. I cleared my throat and started again. “I’m done with everything. Just, everything. I tried really hard to be the good, successful son, but everything falls down around me anyway, so what’s the point? No matter how responsible I try to be and no matter how hard I tried not to be like Dad, I act just like him. And even knowing that, I can’t make myself stop. I don’t know what it is, but I can’t… care anymore. I just don’t want to think, Ray. That’s all. I want to stop thinking and be able to breathe, and lately that only happens when I drink.”

By the time the flow of words dried up, Raymond was silent and staring at the floor while Nunzio covered his face with his hand.

I ground my teeth together, wishing I’d said nothing. Trying to explain the mechanics of misery would never end with people nodding agreeably. They would either try to talk me out of feeling miserable or feel miserable themselves. Staying alone in my room was definitely the better option.

“Look, never mind. If you go to the store, can you pick up some cigarettes for me?”

I waited for Raymond to nod before fleeing the kitchen. I expected Nunzio to stay behind, but his quiet footsteps trailed up the stairs behind me. He hesitated in the attic doorway.

“Can I come in for a while?”

“Why?”

Nunzio took a step inside and closed the door behind him. “Just to talk.”

“If it’s to talk about how much of an alcoholic I am, you can forget it.”

I flopped on my bed, staring up at the ceiling. The sun had set in the time it had taken me to get rid of my family, and the room was dark. I welcomed it, knowing I looked like shit, but Nunzio turned on a lamp.

“I didn’t know your aunt and uncle were going to be here, Mikey. C’mon. Give me a little credit.”

“You didn’t give me a heads-up when Raymond suggested this intervention, though.”

“Oh really?” Nunzio tossed his phone on the bed next to me. “Take a look at your missed calls and messages, asshole. I’ve been trying to let you know all damn day, but your phone is either off or dead.”

He had me there. I didn’t even know where my phone was. Lost somewhere in the mounds of discarded clothing that had accrued in the past two weeks.

“I’m sorry.”

“You should be sorrier for your brother. He is genuinely terrified of losing you, and you didn’t have to treat him that way in front of your douche bag of an uncle.”

“I’ll talk to him later.”

“Will you really?”

“Yes,” I snapped. “I’ll handle it. I didn’t know….”

I didn’t know Raymond was so torn up about our father, because I hadn’t thought about his feelings enough to figure it out. My own drama had prevented us from having a real conversation since the funeral. Even now, I didn’t want to ask. I didn’t want to know. I could picture it too clearly as it was. Raymond being a smart-ass, heckling our father and trying to get him to go take out the trash or clean something up, getting impatient and then….

I bit the inside of my cheek and closed my eyes. The macabre image rotating in my head was sucking away my control, my breath, my ability to fight a welling of tears. I reached up to dash the dampness away from my cheeks.

The crying stage was supposed to be over. The sick feeling in the pit of my stomach was supposed to be numbed. Clearly I had been mistaken.

The bed sank when Nunzio sat beside me, but I didn’t look at him.

“I wish I knew what to do to help you. Both of you.”

I drew my forearm across my eyes and kept it there. “You can’t.”

“With your mom I knew what to say. I could figure out what you needed me to do.” Nunzio’s hand brushed my hair back from my forehead. “But now it’s like you’re falling apart.”

“Because it’s different now.”

“Why? I’m not trying to belittle your father, but I don’t understand. You were so much closer to your mom….” Nunzio trailed off and kept stroking my hair. “I guess I thought the situation with your dad was like the situation with me and my folks. You know? Besides the fact that I have their DNA, I don’t feel anything toward them anymore.”