How It All Blew Up

by Arvin Ahmadi

  The Amir I know … I know my son is strong. But I worry for him in the other room, if you are questioning him right now. He is sensitive. He is—I don’t want to say “broken” right now, but he is going through a lot, so you must take everything he says with a grain of salt.

  You say if you had to guess, you think I’m going through a lot as well? I am fine, sir. I would not say this is ideal, but I am fine. I have everything under control. I am a man, and this is my family. Things might be difficult, not exactly the way I would have liked them to turn out, but I am fine.

  These questions have nothing to do with why we were pulled aside on that plane. My family was just having a conversation. That was all.

  Fifteen Days Ago

  I DIPPED MY fingers in the fountain. I had spilled some prosecco on my shirt right before my parents called, before I clumsily picked up, and I figured I should try and wash it out.

  “Where are you?” my dad asked over the phone. “Why do you keep ignoring our calls?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” I said, dabbing the new shirt I bought yesterday. The store was called OVS; basically, the Italian T.J.Maxx.

  “Amir,” he said, exhausted. “Just come home.”

  “After that last call? No way,” I said, standing up from the ledge of the marble fountain. I saw Jahan and the others out of the corner of my eye, on a bench at the edge of the park, opening another bottle of prosecco. I wanted to be back with them.

  “Please. We can work on it together,” my mom said. Those were the same words she used on our last call, the one that ended in fireworks. How long ago was that now? Four days? Five?

  “Work on it,” I spat into the phone.

  “We can get you help,” Dad said. “You’re confused, we understand—”

  “I’m not confused!” I yelled. I nearly knocked over a little Italian boy. “I already told you. I am not confused. I could not be less confused. There is not a single bone in my body that is confused.”

  “Yes, you are!”

  “My dear son, please listen. Life is going to be harder. You’re not—”

  “One second,” I said. I saw Jahan approaching, waving, his fingernails covered in black nail polish. Is everything okay? he mouthed. It’s fine, I mouthed back. He nodded and turned around.

  My heart was racing all of a sudden. Jahan and the others were looking at me suspiciously now. “I have to go,” I said to my mom and dad.

  I took a long, drawn-out breath, trying to wipe the anger off my face. I shouldn’t have picked up the call, not after the last one. Great. Now I was all riled up again. It was like I had dropped a box labeled FRAGILE: HANDLE WITH CARE.

  The whole time, I could picture exactly how it would go down if I went home. I didn’t have to do the mental math anymore. I had read enough online forums to read between the lines when they said, “We can work on it.”

  There was no way I was leaving Italy at this point. Besides, I had a life here.

  I was spending my days with Jahan. I’d found my own apartment in Testaccio, two blocks away from this park where he and his friends liked to drink prosecco during the day. I was also spending more time at Tiberino—the restaurant on Tiber Island—editing Wikipedia pages to make money.

  I was a little nervous about money. I had finished the edits for that crypto start-up three days ago, and they still hadn’t sent the money to my PayPal account.

  But it was worth it. Late nights at Rigatteria, afternoons spent in Piazza Testaccio. Movies with Jahan and his friends in his living room, eighties music videos and clips from RuPaul’s Drag Race.

  I took one more breath and marched back over to Jahan and his friends on the bench. I liked this life. A lot.

  Before I could even sit down, Rocco asked me, “What is the weirdest place where you have hooked up?”

  “We’re playing a game,” Jahan explained, handing me a new plastic cup with prosecco. “Where we go around and each say the weirdest place where we’ve done the dirty deed. Or, at least, some deed.”

  I was still frazzled after that call with my parents. I took a sip of prosecco.

  “Can you skip me?” I asked.

  Rocco rolled his eyes. He was lying flat on the bench with his face toward the sky. Jahan, who was kneeling next to him with the prosecco bottle, opened his mouth to say something, but I interrupted.

  “I guess a lot of times in the car,” I said, sitting down next to Rocco’s feet. “With this one guy, specifically. He went to my school.”

  “That is so American. And so high school,” Rocco said. “I always forget you were in high school, like, yesterday.”

  “Was he your boyfriend?” Neil asked gently, his eyebrows raised.

  I laughed. “Not really. I wasn’t out, obviously, and neither was he, so we mostly just snuck around and hooked up.”

  Then I started smiling. “There was this one time, though. Jackson—that was his name—he and I decided to see a movie together. That was big for us. We didn’t go to a movie theater in our town—we went to one in Springfield, this other town that was a little farther away, where we knew no one from our school would see us. It was a weeknight, and we were seeing Jumanji, the new one that came out at Christmastime. It had been out for a while, so we didn’t think there would be a lot of people in the theater. But we were still nervous.”

  Jahan leaned forward, his elbows on the bench just inches from my waist. Rocco squinted his beady brown eyes. Neil smiled.

  “The theater was practically empty, just like we expected. We sat in the back row, and after, I don’t know, maybe fifteen minutes, we felt safe enough to hold hands. God, that might have even been our first real date, now that I think of it? But that’s not the point. The point is, we were kissing and feeling each other up and stuff. I was so paranoid. It was my idea, because I just—I wanted to do something with Jackson that didn’t involve a vehicle—but I was just freaking out the whole time.”

  “Did you fuck?” Rocco asked.

  “Rocco, shut up,” Neil hissed. “Keep going, Amir.”

  I nodded. “But then Jackson noticed something. He looked over across the aisle, and behind the last row, there was a space. Just a foot or two between the back of the seats and the wall. Enough space for two people to fit in.”

  “Oh my God,” Rocco said, and Jahan nearly shoved him off the bench.

  My heart was thumping faster. I took a breath. “Jackson looked over at that space, and my eyes followed, and we just stared at each other in the dark. I think we were thinking the same thing. All I wanted in that moment was Jackson, on a flat surface. Not a car seat, not a movie theater seat. So we went.”

  After the park, we stopped by Mercato Testaccio, a busy market with small stands and portly sellers that was filled to the brim with tourists. We had to pick up some ingredients for dinner—pasta and vegetables, meats and cheeses.

  Jahan seemed to know all the vendors. Every time we went to pick something up, Jahan would chitchat with the person at the stand. They never wanted to let him pay. He’d pull out his wallet and the seller would wave their hands and it went back and forth like this until they finally took his money. It reminded me of the battle to pay the bill any time my family went out to dinner with another Iranian family. Soraya and I never understood why they couldn’t just split it. I mean, we knew why, but still.

  We went back to Jahan’s apartment across the river to cook dinner together. Jahan had to run out and grab some wine, and Neil was preparing the salad in the other room, which meant I was stuck in the tiny kitchen with Rocco.

  I started to rip the plastic wrapping off the pasta from the market. Rocco shook his head. “No, you have to boil the water first.”

  “I knew that,” I said. I looked around the kitchen. I was still in a bit of a funk after the call with my parents. Rocco sighed audibly and bent down to get a pot from one of the cupboards.

  “Here, fill this with water,” Rocco said.

  I took the pot and went to fill it up in the sink.
<
br />   “That’s enough,” he said, turning the faucet off. Rocco reached under my arms and took the pot over to the gas stove. He twisted the knob. Click, click, click, fire.

  I slid around him and started opening the can of pomodoro tomatoes on the counter. Rocco was watching me out of the side of his eye as I pulled the metal lid off.

  “Do not spill the tomatoes,” Rocco said to me. “Giovanni’s cleaning lady had to spend an hour cleaning up the next day after you spilled those meatballs.”

  The water wasn’t boiling yet, but my blood was. Ever since the night I rejected him, Rocco had been acting generally unpleasant around me, but tonight he was on another level. I wasn’t in the mood for his shit.

  “How are you and Giovanni doing?” I asked.

  “We are great.” Rocco snatched the can of tomatoes from in front of me and emptied it into a pan over the stove. “How are you doing?”

  “I’ve been better,” I said.

  “I heard that you have an apartment in Testaccio. So you live here now?”

  I shrugged. “I guess. I’m still not sure if I officially have the apartment. I didn’t sign any papers. The landlord is a friend of Francesco’s or something. I just paid him some money for rent and, like, some kind of deposit, and I got the keys. Is that normal?”

  “In Italy, yes.” Rocco picked up the olive oil jar and drizzled some onto the pan, but a few drops slid down the jar onto his white shirt. “Cazzo!” he screamed.

  I got him a paper towel. “I’m sure Giovanni’s cleaning lady can clean it,” I said with a smirk. I couldn’t resist.

  Rocco shook his head. “It is not my shirt.”

  “Giovanni seems to have plenty of shirts, doesn’t he? He’ll be fine.” I was confused. I thought Giovanni and Rocco were loaded. What did it matter if one shirt got ruined?

  Rocco was about to say something, but he shut his mouth. “Yes, Giovanni has many shirts.” He leaned against the counter and started dabbing the stain with the paper towel. Then he looked at me. “It is very random that you are here.”

  I really wasn’t in the mood for his shit tonight. “I can leave if you’d like me to.”

  “I did not mean it like that,” he said, as if what I proposed was ridiculous. “I meant in Rome. I would like to know a little bit more about you, where you came from. You are a stranger. I suppose that is how Jahan operates—he likes to bring in the strays—but I am just saying, it is random.”

  This, coming from an adult who makes art out of macaroni. Before I could say something I might regret, Neil squeezed into the kitchen. “Guys, this salad is going to be so good. Pear and arugula, with walnuts and shaved parmesan.” He grabbed the salt and pepper shakers and a wooden spoon from the counter. “Oh, I overheard you guys talking from the other room, and I just gotta say, Rocco, not everyone was born in Rome like you. Some of us came from other places.”

  Rocco snatched the wooden spoon out of Neil’s hand and stirred the tomato sauce. “Yes, but there is a difference between coming here from Milan because you could not make it as a model, and just showing up out of the blue like Amir.”

  “I did not go to Milan to model,” Neil said, spitting out the word. “I went to Milan for a boy, then stumbled into modeling, and when both of those things busted, I came to Rome.”

  “Because that is what Rome needs,” Rocco said. “More Americans.”

  “Do you have a problem with Americans?” I asked.

  Rocco sighed. “I do not have any problems. I do not see why you believe I have any problems.”

  “Oh yeah, this guy doesn’t have any problems,” Neil laughed. “Where is Giovanni today, Rocco? Is he busy again?”

  Rocco narrowed his eyes on Neil. “Yes, he is busy. We have our own lives. A wild concept. Love can be a disease when it is too intense, you know.”

  Now Neil was glaring back at Rocco. Suddenly, the door to the apartment clicked open and Jahan appeared. The kitchen was packed now. Jahan set the dark bottles of wine on the counter and looked at us, took a whiff, and frowned. I was positive he could smell the tension just as strongly as the tomato sauce.

  “Allora …” Jahan said, getting between Neil and Rocco. “I haven’t seen you two in such close quarters since—well, anyway. Neil, the salad is looking great, isn’t it? You always make the most delicious salads.”

  Neil smiled and left the kitchen with the shakers.

  Rocco exhaled. He seemed relieved to have Neil out of his hair. Jahan merrily threw an arm around Rocco’s shoulder.

  “Remember that amazing Bolognese your mother used to make for us, Rocco? I still have dreams about that Bolognese. Creamy, saucy, delicious dreams.” Jahan looked over at the pot of water on the stove. “I trust this pasta will be right up there, won’t it?”

  Then he turned to me. “Hey, Amir. The water is boiling.”

  Fourteen Days Ago

  IT WAS A cool Italian night, the stars in full view over the rooftop of Rigatteria. Broken windowpanes and antique furniture were scattered all over the giant wooden deck. At my last Italian lesson, Francesco explained to me—through Neil, who translated his broken English—that Rigatteria was actually built on the side of a mound called Monte Testaccio, which used to be where ancient Romans all disposed of their olive oil jars. We were partying atop millions of broken antique shards.

  About fifteen people were taking turns breaking a piñata when I arrived. I’m not going to describe the piñata in detail, except to say that it was exceptionally phallic.

  Meanwhile, Jahan was trying to convince a group of Italians that gorgonzola is the gayest cheese.

  “Ascoltami,” he said. He noticed me out of the side of his eye. “Sembra che tu stia succhiando un cazzo quando lo dici. Gorrrrgonnnzzzoollllaaaaa,” he stretched out the word and made a sexual gesture with his hand and mouth.

  “Gorrgonnzoolaaa,” one of the boys said.

  “Gorrggohhrrrhgghhh,” said a girl with pink streaks in her hair. She practically choked on the word. Jahan explained to me what was going on, and I agreed that although I might have previously questioned how cheese could have a sexual orientation, after this debate, I fully believed that gorgonzola was the gayest cheese.

  I looked around for Neil and Francesco. Between the penis piñata and the gorgonzola debate, it didn’t seem like quite the right mood for a proposal tonight. Though I should have been used to these gay blends of silly and serious. It seemed to be the tempo of my life these days.

  After the candy and condoms from the penis piñata had been cleared out, Francesco stepped out from behind the bar. Everyone gathered around him.

  Francesco spoke in Italian—fast, nervous, shaky—but I didn’t need any translation when he got down on one knee. The way he looked in Neil’s eyes when he popped the question, the way Neil held his hand over his chest as he watched, and the way he uttered one of the few words in Italian I knew—sì—I was overwhelmed. We all were.

  Everyone pulled out their phones to take pictures. I would have pulled mine out, too, but the camera was hardly any good. I was using an old Android Jahan had given me earlier that day. After the last call with my parents, I decided to lose my American number and get an Italian one. I didn’t share that number with anyone from back home.

  As Jahan and Neil and Francesco, all their friends, their family, snapped photos and cheered, something came over me. I was so damn happy for Neil and Francesco. I thought maybe someday, I could find happiness, too.

  Later, I found Neil in the crowd. He slung an arm around my neck and I went in for a full hug, like we were best friends or something. Neil stumbled forward; he was more than a little bit drunk. I held him up. High on the proposal, on the energy of the moment, I said, “Auguri”—the Swiss Army knife of Italian words, which has many different uses, but in this case, congratulations. He smiled.

  “You’ve been studying,” Neil said.

  “I have,” I said, and I couldn’t believe I was having this conversation, this close to Neil, this soon after he
had just been proposed to.

  It must have felt that way for Neil, too. “Thanks, man,” he said. “I expect to see you at the wedding, you know.”

  I pulled back from the hug, my face dumbstruck. I was hung up on the fact that Neil, the hot tutor of my dreams, had invited me to his wedding. And I wasn’t the least bit heartbroken. It didn’t ruin the fantasy at all. There was no fantasy. Friendship, I realized, is better than fantasy.

  I was riding higher and higher. The strings of light around the rooftop glowed warmly. More people began to fill the space and dance. Love was in the air.

  Glow sticks were in the air, too. Jahan had gone downstairs and came back with a whole box of them. He’d crack a bundle of glow sticks and shake vigorously before he tossed them, lighting up the sky like fireworks.

  I caught a glow stick and ambled my way downstairs to the bathroom. I was sober, but I felt drunker than I’d ever been.

  The basement had to be negative eight million degrees Celsius—Celsius!—but I still felt warm and boozy inside. Even with the long line at the bathroom, my priority was not to relieve my bladder but to create a glow stick bracelet by poking the end of the glow stick into the little plastic fastener thingy. Even in my relatively sober state, I was hard-core struggling to fasten the glow stick around my wrist.

  And then I heard, “Here, let me help you. You need two people for that.”

  Behind me, a boy with curly brown hair offered a hand. He looked extremely tall, but that was because he was standing a step above me. When he came down, he was only a couple of inches taller than me. Droopy, kind eyes. The kind that look tired in a cute way. He took one end of the glow stick while I held the plastic fastener, and when he pushed it in, his thumb pressed into my wrist.

  “There,” he said.

  “Thanks,” I said back.

  I was going to introduce myself, do more than just stand there and give the tile floor a dumb smile, but the bathroom freed up. So I went inside. When I came out, he was gone, so I went back upstairs.