Mario (LETTERS TO A GENTLEMAN Book 1)

by Jamie Lake

  His mother screamed and yelled from the bedroom, asking him what he was doing, but Mario stayed in the kitchen until the ancient mail truck with its little putt-putt engine coughed and rattled its way up the street. The mailman was ancient, too—it was the same wizened, bent-over old man who had delivered the last letter he’d received from Maria so many years ago. As the mailman trudged up to the mailbox, whistling, and began stuffing the contents in his sack, Mario had a sudden urge to run out, to stop him, to snatch the letter away from him and tear it into a hundred pieces. But he stopped himself, and when the mailman was back in the truck and the truck was chugging away into the distance, Mario actually felt a sense of relief. It was out of his hands now. Fate would answer with a yes or a no.

  CHAPTER 6

  Each day was more excruciating than the last. The weather got hotter and hotter. Summer in Mexico was never a joke, but this time, it felt like the rays sought Mario out and scorched him on purpose, as if punishing him for reaching out in the past and trying to change something that was supposed to have been settled long ago.

  He was drained of energy. And it wasn’t just his duties around the house—caring for his mother, who seemed to be getting nominally better with his cousin’s occasional help—nor the endless nights working a double-shift as a janitor to make up for the second job he’d lost. His exhaustion came from a new daily routine that had been established. Every day, at 2:15pm, like clockwork, the ancient mail truck chugged up the road to deliver the mail. And every day, the minute the truck pulled away, Mario would rush outdoors to check on the box, with hope and expectation mounting inside him, daring to imagine that he would find an envelope addressed in Maria’s loopy scrawl.

  But, every day, his hopes were dashed. The only mail that ever came was junk mail—catalogs, bills. Mario just stacked all of it on the kitchen table, knowing that his mother would never look at it.

  For weeks, Mario ignored the stack of mail, hating the sight of it because it contained no answer from Maria. But finally, he realized he had to take care of the bills, so he sat down at the kitchen table and began opening the envelopes and writing checks. As he went about the mundane task, he found his mind drifting—found himself returning in his imagination to the beautiful vineyard where he and Maria had met. He had been a lowly farm hand, a migrant worker, and she the child of his boss, the vineyard owner. They had spent endless sunny days together: hiding under the bushes, eating grapes, whispering sweet nothings into each other’s ears when they thought no one was looking. They’d been through so much together, so much that only they could go through together; hidden behind the hills of those rolling, fragrant green fields, they had discovered each other’s secrets—secrets they’d each hidden from their families for years.

  He sighed. It had been nearly three weeks now since he mailed the letter. He was beginning to give up hope. For nearly three weeks, he had been living for that moment in the afternoon when the mail came. But the one-month deadline was creeping closer, and he had heard nothing. Why would Maria even want to write back anyway?

  The last day of the month finally arrived. When the mail truck pulled up, he was so distracted that he ran outside without his shoes. As he hobbled along to the mailbox, the hot ground nearly peeling the skin from his feet, his heart was pounding like an African drum. Mario reached the mailbox just as the truck was pulling away. Today was the day that would determine his fate. Today was the deadline he’d set for her to respond. If the letter was there, he’d know they were meant to be.

  First, he took a deep breath. Then, he yanked the mailbox door open quickly, the way you tear a bandage off. And as he looked into the darkened oval-shaped box, he saw nothing.

  Not a damn thing.

  CHAPTER 7

  For days, he tried to live with the truth. The matter was settled. He had set the ultimatum and now he had to live with it. But he couldn’t. As the days rolled on, no matter how busy he kept himself, no matter what he did to keep his mind off Maria, he couldn’t, he wouldn’t let it go.

  One night, during his janitorial shift, Mario’s anger began overtaking his disappointment. As he sprayed down the desks in the school classrooms, he scrubbed them fiercely, thinking, the least she could have done was write me a note that said ‘shove off.’ She couldn’t even find the time to answer? That night was another restless one. He tossed and turned for hours, wrestling with his feelings, and finally, long before his mother was awake, he got up and went to the kitchen, knowing there was only one thing he could do.

  Call her.

  His large fingers fumbled as they dialed the old rotary-style phone. Even after all these years, he still knew the number by heart. He only hoped the number was still good and that, even this early in the morning, someone would answer.

  He almost hung up after the twentieth ring. He was foolish to even think someone would answer early as they did wake on the vineyard—and yet then, someone did.

  “Hello?” a raspy old voice said.

  Mario immediately recognized the voice. He had so many memories of having to go through Maria’s mother to speak to her.

  “Hello?” the voice repeated, this time more irritated.

  “Um, hello,” he heard himself say, and suddenly he was a teenager again, shy about talking to an adult, scared Maria’s mother wouldn’t let her come to the phone.

  “Who is this?” her mother said.

  “Senora Santiago? This is … this is Mario,” he said.

  The silence that followed his words felt like an eternity. Finally, she spoke again. “What do you want?”

  He worked up a smile and said, “Maybe you don’t remember me, it’s been so long, but…”

  “I know who you are,” she snapped. “Now, what do you want?”

  It had been over ten years since he’d heard her voice and, even though she hadn’t always been the friendliest person in the world to him back then, he’d thought that after all these years, he would get a warmer reception than that.

  “Oh, well, I was curious if Maria…”

  “No,” she cut him off very firmly.

  “No? I only want to talk to her for a moment,” he said as politely as he could, though his blood was starting to boil.

  “You’re going to call up here, after all these years, and now you want to talk to my daughter? Now?!” she said, raising her voice.

  He wanted to tell her that it was none of her business, that what had gone on between him and Maria was between the two of them and no one else. He wanted to tell her that he wasn’t going to let anything come between him and the one he loved anymore, not even her, but instead, he held it together.

  “Now, you listen to me,” he said, the bass in his voice rumbling with authority. “I only need a few minutes with her. She’s old enough to make her own decisions.”

  A wicked chuckle erupted from the other side of the phone. “Old enough. You really are stupid, aren’t you?”

  “I beg your pardon, Senora?” Mario was reaching the edge of his patience.

  “You mean, no one told you?”

  “Told me what?”

  “She -- my daughter died, Mario.”

  Even with the edge in her voice, he could tell she was trying to hide the pain. Suddenly, his world was spinning. He was drowning in guilt. He was too late. Too late.

  “Dead?” he heard himself say.

  “Yes, dead. And she died of a broken heart—all because of you.” Her voice was tight with anger. “My daughter loved you, Mario. You knew this, and you used her.”

  “I never -- Senora, I’m -- I’m so sorry for your-” he started to say.

  “Save it,” she spat. “Nothing you can say will bring my daughter back.”

  “I had no idea she -- she felt that way about me. I thought she understood …. we talked about it.”

  “Why don’t you ask me what you really want to ask me?” she said.

  He swallowed hard. Did she know? Had Maria confessed the truth to her mother before she died?

/>   “Is he -- Is Keith around?” he asked.

  “You have some nerve. The Devil’s got a special place in hell for people like you.”

  CHAPTER 8

  For days, he felt hollow and dizzy, as if he were shell-shocked. Maria was dead. The one link between him and the one he loved was gone. Suddenly, all those years she had pretended for him, all those years she’d protected his secret, all those years she’d selflessly served as his beard began to make sense to him.

  Maria had been in love with him. Why hadn’t he seen it? He’d written the letters using her name because she had said he could. She had understood what his lover’s parents would do if they found out about the two of them. She had never seemed to mind, all those times he called her up just to give her a telephone message to pass along to someone else, and now he realized she did it only so she could hear his voice. All those years. She must have been dying inside the whole time, wanting Mario so bad yet knowing that not even in her wildest dreams could she have him.

  Mario had spent so many years calling Keith, the person he really loved, “Maria”—so many years referring to his love as “she,” that it almost felt natural, even though Keith was as macho as Mario himself. The secret of their love had been safe with Maria and yet, all along, she’d kept the secret as a way to be close to the one she loved: Mario.

  His heart ached for her. He only wished he could have had the chance to say “goodbye” to her, to thank her for all she’d done for him and Keith. There was nothing he could ever do, ever say, to repay her but that night he took a walk out in the middle of the desert amongst a sacred land and river his father used to take him to when he was younger. There, he lit a white candle and said his final goodbyes.

  Mario stood with the immense, silent desert stretching out for miles on all sides of him, with the endless sky above him awash in a red-orange sunset, with the brown mountains just visible in the very far distance.

  She’s out there, somewhere, he thought. My dear friend Maria.

  He knew she wouldn’t want him sulking after her. She had sacrificed her life, her love, to make him happy and he only hoped there was a chance he could speak to Keith again. Keith had to be fine—he had to be, or, Mario knew, Maria’s mother would have mentioned something, if only to hurt Mario, out of spite.

  The sun sank below the mountains and the red of the sunset became the deep purple-black of evening. The setting sun always reminded Mario how short life was. Keith was alive, and now Mario could no longer hide behind Maria. It was Maria’s greatest gift to him. As he turned to begin the long trudge back to his mother’s house, he vowed that their love would come out in the open, if only Keith would see him again.

  CHAPTER 9

  “Are you going to bring me that soup, or are you going to let it get cold again, like the last time?” her mother scoffed as Mario made his way down the hall with the tray.

  He was doing his best to stay patient, but some days were harder than ever, especially lately. His nerves were fraying at the ends. He was unravelling, coming apart at the seams. And all his mother ever did was scream and shout and expect him to serve her like he was a nurse. What was she going to say when he told her that he needed to leave her for good?

  “Almost there, mother,” he said, bringing the tray to her bedside.

  “Better not be too much salt in it this time,” she said.

  “Tortillas?” he asked, changing the subject.

  “Of course, I want tortillas. How can you eat tortilla soup without tortillas?”

  Mario brought the tortillas from the kitchen, and when he came back into the room, she said, “Well…?”

  “Well what, mother?” he asked her.

  “Have you heard from her yet?”

  He sighed. He really didn’t want to get into it right now. How could he tell her that the woman he’d pretended was his girlfriend was dead? How could he tell her that he didn’t even know if the man he actually loved would see him again?

  “No,” he answered. “And I probably never will.”

  “Well, don’t sound so gloomy,” she said.

  Mario couldn’t stay in this room one second longer or he would scream. “I’m going to get some air,” he mumbled and turned to leave the room.

  “Son,” his mother’s tone was suddenly softer. He turned around and looked at her in surprise. It was a very rare occasion that she called him “son.”

  “What is it, mother?” he asked, concerned.

  “Sit down for a second,” she said, patting the bed.

  Mario hesitated. Hearing her wheezing and labored breathing, he wondered if she was really on her deathbed, if she was going to speak her last words to him, or reveal a secret she had held all her life. His mother had never allowed him onto her bed. Not even when he was a child and he’d had a nightmare. He was never allowed to crawl under the covers with her and take comfort from the warmth radiating from her, like most children had been able to. It was his father’s side of the bed, she’d once explained, and she was keeping it open for him. Mario had long stopped questioning the fact that she kept a space for her wasted love life, but not for her son. Now, he sat down gingerly on the very edge of the bed, feeling like an intruder.

  “There’s something I want to talk to you about.” His mother’s speech was slow, but it wasn’t from her difficulty breathing. She was opening herself up, showing her vulnerable side, and she was having a hard time with it.

  “What happened?” he asked.

  She started and stopped half a dozen times before she finally spit it out.

  “Is there something you need to tell me?” she finally asked.

  “About what?” he asked her, tightening up.

  What did she know? Did she know Maria was dead? Did she know that he had never really loved her in the first place? Did she know about Keith? Had she guessed that, any day now, he was going to need to leave her for good?

  “I don’t know, how about Maria?” She raised an eyebrow.

  “What’s that supposed to mean? I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he lied. His heart was racing. He had always known there would come a time when he’d have to have this conversation. He had hoped it would be when his mother was long gone so he didn’t have to face it. How could you tell someone something that might shatter their perception of you? How could you confirm their lifelong belief that you were a complete failure and disappointment of a son?

  “Son, really?” she said. “I know, we haven’t always … seen eye-to-eye about things but I hoped that you felt like you could be honest with me.”

  “Honest with you?”

  What a joke.

  “Are you really going to make me say it?” Her voice was wavering, and Mario saw tears in her eyes. “You know, this really disturbs me that you don’t trust me enough to talk to me, to tell me what’s going on in your life.”

  Clearly, his mother was still playing games, still trying to torture him. Mario stood up and, impatient, began pacing the room. “Mother, honestly, I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said.

  “I understood if there was never going to be a wedding or grandchildren for me. I accepted that a long time ago … with your condition,” she said.

  “My condition?”

  “Yes, Mario, your condition. Well? Will you just say it?”

  “Say, what mother? Say what? That you never wanted me to be with Maria? That even if I had brought her into this house, you never would have accepted her, you never would have approved of our relationship?”

  Every time he said the name “Maria,” he had to struggle against the lump in his throat. He was tired of lying, tired of hiding behind Maria’s name. Using that poor dead girl’s name was the lowest of lows to him, and he was getting to the point where he just didn’t care whether his mother’s heart would be broken or not. He loved Keith and she was going to have to accept it, whether she liked it or not.

  “Never would have approved of your relationship? Now, that is not true. Not
true at all,” she said, folding her arms tighter.

  “You lie!” he said. “You did everything in your power to prevent us from being together.” His voice cracked on the last word and he stopped, refusing to speak again until he had himself under control.

  “I did nothing of the sort,” she said, clutching her robe under her chin dramatically.

  “You did,” he said. He sighed. This was not how he wanted to have this conversation. He always thought when the truth finally came out, he would have Keith by his side—or, better yet, a marriage certificate in his hand, even if they weren’t legally married. Then, he could rub in her face that there was nothing she could do about it. Instead, he was skating around the conversation like he was still sixteen-years-old.

  “Tell me this,” she said finally, breaking the silence, “When did you start calling him ‘Maria’?”

  So, she did know. Mario’s head was pounding. His throat was dry. It felt like his world was falling apart. His fingers fumbled with the hem of his shirt and he shifted from one leg to the other. How long had she known? How long had she been hiding that secret from him?

  “It was a mutual decision,” he said in a low voice, thinking back to the day they’d decided. As fast as the world had been changing at the time, with discos becoming popular and gay culture seeping into the world’s consciousness, both he and Keith had known that the love between them was forbidden, and had to be covered up.

  When he’d first met Keith, Mario had tried to trick himself into believing he’d fallen for a female, perhaps so he could sleep at night without being tortured by memories of the stories his mother told him of heaven and hell, stories which he swore were nonsense but were still etched so indelibly into his subconscious that the fear had become part of his DNA. He remembered the nights away from her. Him. It was only when they were together that Mario could forget the consequences, the difficult journey that lay ahead, and focus only their love. The other times—the nights he was alone, the days when he worked and couldn’t see him—those were the times that fear shook Mario to the core and he wondered if it was possible to run away from himself.