hidden

by Tomas Mournian

  “I remember …” He slows down. Not much, but enough for me to catch up. “I looked up and saw the clock. The social worker left. Walked away. Just left me sitting there. Alone. You know how they do. She’d left the door open.”

  “Yeah,” I say. “Like she was inviting you to leave.”

  “Uh-huh.” He nods. “There was no one to stop me. Never was. Nobody ever cared if I stayed or if I left. I heard this voice in my head. You know what it said?”

  “No.”

  “Said, ‘Kidd, you think it’ll never end. Really, you’re just getting used to it. Forget them. Now it’s you who don’t care.’ But some part of me still did care. I stood up and ran. I ran down the stairs, out the side door and I kept running. I never looked back.”

  I shouldn’t, but I do. I relax. If Kidd feels comfortable enough telling me something this personal, then he doesn’t hate. I exhale, relieved. This is our “bonding” moment. We’re going to walk out and up, into the light.

  “Then you walked in—” He turns on me and swings the flashlight to smash my head. “You fucked it up.”

  My stomach drops. I duck down. He smiles. The happy face turns him into a killer. I stumble, trip and fall back. I land on my ass.

  He jumps, sits on my chest, knees pressing my arms to the ground. He’s gonna kill me, I know he is.

  Chapter 96

  “Me?” I don’t fool him. But I give it a shot. Maybe I can buy time. Wiggle away. “Fucked up what?”

  “You don’t even give him the time of day and he’s all over you!”

  He waves the flashlight, a miniature light saber. My hands fly up. I try to block the beam. Too late. My pupils close, tight as a virgin boy’s butthole.

  “That’s not true, I—” The flashlight gave me a headache. Fuck it. If it’s the “truth” he wants, I’ll give it to him. Go ahead, kill me. You’ll be sorry. I’m giving you something to think about for the rest of your life. “You’re right. The second we laid eyes on one another, we knew.”

  “Knew what?” His voice shrinks, suddenly small and scared. I stand.

  “I wanted him and he wanted me.”

  I laugh. I make myself. It sounds false and brittle, but I want to hurt him. I back away.

  “Fucking liar!”

  “Yeah,” I say, lowering my voice. I know how to drive him insane. Unleash jealousy, the green-eyed monster, to attack him. Bite him. Infect him. “We smelled it. I knew I was gonna fuck him the second I saw him.”

  There. I’ve said it. But once I’ve said it, I regret it. The words don’t make me feel better. Or like I’ve won. No, I stand in a mold-infested basement, playing a supporting role in some dumb homo-romo triangle. I’ll pay for my cruelty—pay for it with my life. Well, I think, maybe in the next life, I’ll be a nicer person. Live longer.

  Kidd rushes toward me. But instead of running away, I reach out and grab him. Hold him in my arms. Hug him.

  “Fuck! Get off!”

  He tries to shake me. I hold on tight. Strange as it sounds, I draw my strength from our shared love: J.D.

  “Bitch! You heard me! What’d I say first time I sent you to hell?”

  “What?”

  “He’s pos-i-tive,” Kidd says, sounding out the word. Hooked on phonics, this is how we say, H-I-V.

  “Positive?” I play dumb. Even though I knew. J.D. told me, but—

  “Positive. He’s positively positive. Fun, huh?”

  “You’re a really sad dude.” My heart sinks. He laughs. The sound’s outside my head. His words echo, “You couldn’t handle it if I told you.”

  True, I know the virus has no morals. But the truth is the truth. Facts are facts. I’m negative; J.D.’s positive. Never shall the two meet. But wait. J.D. and me did—we had sex. As of last night, we are (okay, were) still having sex. I’ve been infected and I’m positive and I don’t know it? That’s not possible. We used condoms. Well, most of the time. My head spirals.

  Meanwhile, J.D. is elsewhere, off-stage from our homo-romo triangle. A chasm’s opened up, and it’s bigger than the one between me and my parents. Kidd did me one better and saw something in me—that my sense of survival trumps everything, even love. He knew. Knew that I’d give up, turn and go back. I could choose to refuse to “believe” Kidd. I could act like I don’t understand what he’s said. I might feel like shit, but he was right. I give up.

  “He’s positive about what?”

  “He’s got the bug, baby, do I need to spell it out? The pre-AIDS, the H.I.V.,” he says, rhyming “HIV” with “give.”

  “The what?” I ask, playing dumb coz I’m in denial.

  “Stick around. Loverboy’s gonna get real sick. That map you stole?”

  “What map?”

  “The one that fell out of my bag. I leave the house for doctors’ appointments. He won’t do it. He thinks he’s special. Immune. He thinks he’ll never get sick. Me? I plan to live. So it’s pills and checkups and medicine for the rest of my life. All courtesy of loverboy.”

  He points the flashlight at a pool of water. The beam hits the surface. The tunnel lights up, wavy shadows dancing on the ceiling and walls.

  “It makes sense for us. My advice? Give him up. Trust, you can’t handle it. You’re not immune. You’re not special. You’ll die if you catch it.”

  Finished, Kidd studies my face, checking to see. “Did I make my point?” And, “Will he walk away?”

  “What you’re saying is—” I’ve got cotton mouth. “J.D. infected you?”

  “One night, he fucked me, didn’t use a rubber, and this would be—” The flashlight clicks off. Darkness falls over us like a shroud. “The end of your ride.”

  “Ride? What ride?” I ask, even though I get it. I’ve got to keep him here. I can’t be alone. The mole people, the rats—I won’t survive. I need him to show me the way back. My “ride” was an emotional roller coaster. Next stop, hell!

  “Part of the game,” he says and, just like that, he’s gone.

  “You don’t scare me!” I yell. My voice bounces off walls, echoing, endlessly. You. Don’t. Scare. Me. There’s fear in every word.

  “I was a nice person before I met him!” he shouts, words ping-ponging ding! ding! ding! and lighting up the inside of my head.

  Then, nothing. Reality check. Kidd’s gone.

  “Ah—” A tiny sob threatens to slip out. I press my hand against my mouth and muffle the sound and stand there, left not just alone but terrified.

  Chapter 97

  I stay like that for a long time. Alone, in the dark. I don’t know what else to do or where to go. I wait for someone to turn up and “save me.” I could try to retrace our path. Or, I could just start walking. Five steps later and I turn a corner. There’s a shape in front of me. Giant rat? Mole person? I reach out. My hand brushes wool. A coat.

  “RUN!!!” my brain screams. “RUN!!!”

  My legs are weak with fear, but they obey. Or, try to. Running, I feel like that Greek character. Lot. A Lot. As in, A Lot to Lose. Lot escaped hell. But right before Lot left, he was told, “Don’t look back. If you do, your wife turns into a pillar of salt.” Of course, Lot did look back and saw his wife morph into salt. Forget the wife, I know Lot’s story. It’s human nature dressed up as myth.

  So, I turn and look back. Eyes glow. Lot’s wife? No, these eyes are blue. Blue-Eyed Bob.

  I turn, run and bump into—

  “Ah!!!”

  I recognize the shriek.

  “Anita?”

  “Girl!”

  Laughing, we fall into one another’s arms. I know she’s a lying bitch (who goes around telling people, “Ben’s a dirty ho.”). That’s ancient history. We join hands. We’re going to find our way out. I have faith. Anita knows.

  We’re about to turn the corner and—I can’t help myself—I look back.

  Bob’s blue eyes are gone.

  Chapter 98

  “I’ma Gla-More Girl.” Anita giggles. “Capital G-I-R-L.”

  Despite
being several feet taller than me, she hangs off my arm. We’ve become BFFs who could be heading home after a late night out (party, club, party, club).

  “I am not taking those stairs.” We take the elevator. On the fifth floor, I knock on the safe house door. No one answers.

  “Honey,” Anita says, placing a big hand on my tiny shoulder. “It’s locked.”

  We cross the roof and climb down the fire escape. Last step, we stand outside the kitchen window.

  “I mean,” she says, unspooling a nonstop monologue studded with lines stolen from last month’s Vogue, “I would sell anything for a new haircut, ya know?”

  “In here!” Marci shouts, motioning us inside. It’s a wake. Everyone wears the same bored, miserable face.

  “Girl.” Anita’s curled up, laughing. “Who died?”

  Chapter 99

  Peanuts and I kick it on the sofa. We’re in the middle of our daily dose of afternoon reality TV and talk shows. After noon, I abandon the Johnny Panic translation. I need something else to relieve my boredom. Nothing’s better than listening to someone else’s problems.

  “Gimme!” Pony lunges for the remote. “I wanna watch cartoons.”

  “‘sides Pony,” Peanuts says, holding the remote up, beyond Pony’s reach. “Who votes cartoons? ’cept the seven-year-olds. Shiiiittttttt.”

  We crack up, falling onto one another. It feels good to laugh.

  “Aw.” Pony makes a try for the remote. “They relax me.”

  “Hey, Pony, knock it off,” I say, “We got a date with Oprah.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah. We’re gon’ watch my girl,” Peanuts says.

  Cue, theme song. We shift our gaze to the show’s spectacular sci-fi graphics opening. Oprah steps out, curls bouncing and working her razzle-dazzle smile.

  “Heyyyyy!” we chant, and wave. Oprah waves back. “Love you!”

  Pony stands and walks to the kitchen, kicking our ankles.

  “Hey, Bigfoot!” I shout. “Watch out!”

  “I am so fuckin’ sicka your shit, Pony,” Peanuts says. “You go ’round all bumping into people, demanding they be nice.”

  “Yeah, bro’,” Kidd says. “What the fuck’s your problem?”

  “You try hidin’ under a buncha trash in the back of a pickup all the way from Texas!” Pony screams. He stands in the kitchen doorway and waves his arms.

  “You were in the hospital like, what? Two weeks? That’s nothing,” Kidd says. Lately, he’s been an equal opportunity asshole.

  Thump! Thump! A neighbor pounds on a wall. “Keep it down!”

  “Do they think we’re having a party?” I ask.

  “You know what?” Pony looks around, crazy-eyed, “searching” for something. His sanity? Good luck with that. You’ll never find it. Pony runs across the floor, scrambles up the ladder and leans over. I know what he’s planning. I panic. But before I can stop him, he’s pulled out my blue notebook. Crazicle’s psychic. He reads:

  i love the way J.D.’s hair

  feels in my fingers.

  it is black & thick.

  silky smooth but so tough.

  there is more hair on his head

  than there is grass on most lawns.

  or wheat on fields.

  his head is just covered in hair.

  then, i realize that it is black. no color.

  i ask him, ‘why is ur hair still black?’

  he looks up at me with those brown eyes & smiles.

  ‘’cuz Anita said it’d just turn out orange.’

  I jump off the sofa and run to the bunk. A hand grabs my ankle. I trip and fall.

  “Oh, no, honeeeeee!” Kidd banshee screeches. “This too damn good!”

  Click, click, click. The dead bolts turn, front door opens. Anita walks into the safe house. She shuts the door.

  “Let him go.” Her voice is stone-cold sober. She’s home early. This is another Anita. She’s drunk. Pony and Kidd stupidly stands in her crosshairs.

  “Or what?” Kidd says.

  “Or—” Anita slides a switchblade out her purse. “I cut your face, you dumb fucking wannabe militant.”

  Kidd open his mouth—

  Click!

  The switchblade pops, shiny, silver and sharp.

  “Case you don’t notice,” Anita says, “I’m not fucking around with the likes of you.”

  Note to self, re: safe house rules. Switchblades?

  “And you, retard, up there, hiding.” Anita waves the switchblade. Sunlight glints on the blade. “Give the man back his journal.”

  Pony leans over the bunk. Polite, he hands me the journal.

  “Get off that bunk,” she orders. “That was Ben’s bed before you got here.”

  I love Anita. She’d make a fantastic bank robber.

  “Motherfucker!” Pony screams, back to white trash psycho. He leaps off the bunk, George of the Jungle style. He slips past Anita and stands in the hallway. “I fuckin’ hate livin’ here! I hate all these stupid rules! I hate—”

  “Then maybe, homeboy—” Anita says, steps forward, switchblade up, near his face. Pony stares at the tip. He’s got one foot out the door. “You should leave. Like, right now.”

  “You’re all a bunch of losers with AIDS!” he shouts, and bolts. “Fuckin’ Commies!”

  Anita calmly folds the switchblade, walks to the door and closes it. Casual, she flips the dead bolts, and locks up. Done, she turns to us and gives us a tired smile.

  “I’m always so glad when the trash takes itself out.”

  Chapter 100

  “Anita?”

  I knock on the bathroom door. Behind me, the closet door opens. Hammer sticks his head out.

  “Dude, you gotta check this out.”

  He wears a cam whore outfit: tank top and loose shorts.

  “Is this one of your Webcam things?”

  “No.” He motion me inside. Peanuts sits in front of the laptop. On-screen, a reporter, microphone in hand.

  “The shooting occurred outside the Polk Street restaurant. Witnesses said the argument was over ‘Who’s prettier?’”

  Cut to, a grainy surveillance image.

  “Isn’t that—?”

  “Yeah!” Hammer says. “And look! She’s got a gun!”

  “The suspect is a black, teenage female. The gunshot was not fatal.”

  The “suspect” wears oversized sunglasses, a silk wrap dress. She holds a black clutch and a small gun.

  “Wow,” I say. “She even managed to work a look.”

  “Which one?” Hammer asks.

  “High-fashion model slash Black Panther circa nineteen seventy-five.”

  “Can you believe this shit?” Peanuts says, clicking the mouse, channel surfing. The shooting is headline news. “Over who’s prettier!”

  The bathroom door opens. We all turn and look. Anita emerges out of a cloud of white smoke. At first, I almost don’t recognize her. Her long hair’s gone, shorn to the skull. Without makeup, she looks like a boy.

  “Hey, ’Nita.” Peanuts laughs. “What’d you do with the piece?”

  Anita may look like a boy, but she still acts like a queen. She ignores Peanuts, opens the front door and leaves. She left her purse on the bathroom floor.

  “I hope the cops don’t come to get her,” Hammer says.

  “Depends on how good a shot she was,” Peanuts says. “She killed somebody, probably. Assault, naw. There’s so much shit that goes down on Polk. Nothing ever happens.”

  I grab Anita’s purse, about to follow her out.

  “Hey,” Peanuts shouts. “Where you going?”

  For some reason, I turn and look for J.D. He’s gone. Maybe he’s smoking or on the fire escape. I walk to the kitchen, part the curtains and look—it’s empty. Voices. I look up: Kidd and J.D. are together, one flight up. They kiss.

  J.D. looks down.

  “Mi’jo!”

  I hear him, but I’ve already turned and run back. I want to open the front door and run even farther, but right
now, I don’t know where to go.

  Chapter 101

  J.D. crawls up the ladder and onto the bed. I’m turned away and face the wall. I know it’s him because I know his weight, how his body feels on the bed. He raises his hand, a shadow on the wall, about to rest it on my shoulder.

  “Mi’jo, please!” he pleads. “Can we talk?”

  I don’t move. Even though I want to turn over and ask. Why. I stare at the wall, listening to him breathe. I wonder how long he’ll wait. Five? Eighteen? Thirty days?

  “Can I at least explain?”

  I roll over. I don’t look him in the eye. I look to the side, at everything but: chin, ear, temple. I want to kiss him. But now his lips seem used. Dirty.

  “Explain what?” I say. “I saw. What else is there to say?”

  “No. You. Just. Saw. Can we talk about this?”

  “I’m here. Talk.”

  “In the closet?” I wipe the tears off my face. “Okay.”

  Hammer and Peanuts leave the closet, silent. The door shuts.

  “We’re alone,”

  I tell myself. “We could work this out.” I shake my head. “No, he lied.” My body says, “I don’t care.”

  J.D. steps forward. I step back. I don’t want him to touch me. I back into a corner. He comes close. I put out a hand. Stop. I know that if he touches me, I won’t be able to resist—his touch, his lips, his kiss.

  “Are you listening?” I nod. “Then what’d I just say?”

  “Dunno.”

  He reaches out and squares my shoulders, turning my body toward his. “What do you want?”

  “You,” he says.

  “Fine. I’ll leave my body. You can have it. But you can’t have me.”

  I wish he’d leave. I want to lie down and go to sleep.

  “Look at me.” I do, but my gaze drifts to the side. He takes my chin, forcing me to meet his gaze. “You don’t get it. Kidd? He’s like living with a stalker.”

  I watch him struggle and try to explain. I want to hear him, but my heart is deaf. I feel betrayed to the core by the one person I chose to trust. “Compassion,” I tell myself. “Forgiveness.” I look at him. I can’t help it. My heart is cold.