Last Night I Sang to the Monster

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

  But there were good days too, days when she would get up early and make breakfast and clean and cook the most amazing meals for dinner. But the last time we had a dinner together, it didn’t work out too well. She’d spent all afternoon making homemade ravioli. “I wanted to be Italian. Instead, I was just a boring girl from Ohio.” My mom was a lot of things. But she wasn’t boring. Boring would have been really great.

  So that night, we were enjoying her ravioli and everything was going really good. My dad was making jokes, trying to make my mom laugh, and my mom, she was smiling. God, she could smile. And Dad wasn’t too drunk and, you know, I was starting to feel a little relaxed. I’m not a relaxed kind of guy. I’m all tied up in knots. You know, around here they call that anxiety. And, well, I’m on some meds for that. Look, I think God wrote anxious on my heart.

  But that night, I was starting to feel chilled. It all fell apart when my brother Santiago came home, stoned out of his mind. He was seriously crazed. He looked at all of us and yelled, “Typical. No one fucking invited me.” I mean, the guy lived there. He was always invited.

  My brother really tore me up. He looked right at my mom and said, “It’s about fucking time you cooked.” He spit on her plate and then started in on my dad, throwing cuss words around like confetti. His words were flying all over the room. He grabbed my dad’s plate and threw it across the room and it shattered against the wall.

  And then my mom, she immediately went back to her internal life, to that place where she lived. I just sat there, hoping my brother wouldn’t go after me. But of course he did. “Suckass.” He made this sucking thing with his lips. “You got any money, suckass?”

  He knew I always had a few bucks on me. It was like I was the guy’s ATM machine. I reached into my wallet and pulled out two twenties.

  “That all you got?”

  “Yeah.” I tried to pretend I wasn’t scared.

  He grabbed the money. “Let me see your wallet.” He threw the wallet on the floor and looked at me like I was nothing. “This isn’t over,” he said. “Don’t fucking believe this is over.” He pushed me against the wall and I could smell his breath. It smelled like he’d eaten a dead dog. God, my heart was beating so fast that I thought it was going to fly out of my chest. He looked at me with that look of his, that look that said I was nothing, that look that said I wasn’t even worth hating.

  He left me standing there. I felt stupid and naked even though I was wearing clothes.

  I heard the door slam and I jumped. Man, I was a knot of nerves.

  My mom got up from where she was sitting and left the room. I got up from my chair and cleaned up the mess. My dad just sat there and poured himself another glass of wine. I served him another plate of my mom’s ravioli and we sat there and finished eating.

  He didn’t say a word. I didn’t either. It was like Santiago stole our mouths and all the words that were in them.

  -2-

  I always wanted to have Santiago’s name. We were both named after our grandfathers. Santiago was named after my dad’s father. And I was named after my mom’s father. My dad never liked the idea of me being named Zachariah. Zachariah? What kind of name was that for a guy whose last name was Gonzalez and who lived in El Paso, Texas? And my mother didn’t even like her father. My dad’s father was born in Mexico City. My mom’s father was born in Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio. My dad’s father was an artist and a musician. My mom’s father was an accountant. So I was named after an accountant from Ohio, a guy who my mother hated—and my brother was named after an artist-musician from Mexico City. Shit. I always got the short end. Shit. My brother’s full name is Santiago Mauricio Gonzalez, and me, my full name is Zachariah Johnson Gonzalez.

  I’m skinny like my mom and Santiago is big like my dad. And I must have looked like my mom’s dad because my skin is so white—not like Santiago’s. Santiago looked like his name. I guess I looked like mine. Maybe we got the names we deserved.

  I know the deal. You don’t get to pick what you look like.

  You don’t get to pick your name.

  And you don’t get to pick your parents.

  You can’t pick your brother, either. Mine didn’t exactly love me. The guy didn’t love anybody. He didn’t know how. That wasn’t his fault. He just didn’t get that love thing. He was mad all the time. He used to hit me. He broke one of my ribs once. Everyone pretended that it didn’t happen. Including me.

  Another time, he came home drunk and beat the holy shit out of me. Yeah, look, I didn’t cry. I didn’t yell. See, when my brother hit me, I sort of went away. I don’t know how to explain that. I guess I got that from my mom. I don’t know exactly where I went, but, look, I just went away. That’s all I can say about it.

  One time, my dad had taken my mom to the movies. That was a big deal because they never went out. When they came home, my brother was gone and I was all black and blue. I don’t want to go into the details of what I looked like. It tore me up to look at myself in the mirror. I told my dad that some guys at school had jumped me as I came out of the library. I didn’t get the feeling that he was all that worried. That made it easier because Santiago said he’d fucking kill me if I ever told anyone. I didn’t go to school for a few days. That was okay. Well, it wasn’t so okay really. No, no, it was not okay. I had to study extra hard to catch up.

  I really loved Santiago. I always loved him. It was like he was the sky and the air. It felt that way when I was a little boy. I knew that even though he was way into mood-altering substances and he had this really bad temper that there was something really beautiful inside him. Just because no one else could see it didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  I remember this one time, he was about thirteen and I was about ten. I don’t remember why exactly, but I heard him crying. So my feet just took me to his room. I sat next to him on his bed and I said, “Santiago, don’t cry, it’s okay.”

  He put his head on my shoulder and he cried like a baby. His tears soaked my t-shirt and I felt as if my skin was soaking in everything that had ever hurt him. And I was so happy. That sounds screwed-up, I know. But I was happy. Because I was with my brother. I was really with him. That was the first time in my life that I knew that he loved me, that he really loved me. And I wanted to tell him that I loved him back. I just didn’t know how to say it.

  When he stopped crying, we caught a bus and went to a movie. I was happy and a part of me wanted to hold my brother’s hand. I know that’s really weird and when I think about it I wig myself out. I’m always thinking really crazy things.

  Sometimes, after Santiago would hit me, he’d cry and tell me he was sorry. And he would buy me things, you know, like a CD of Rage Against the Machine or Juanes. He knew I really liked Juanes. It made me happy that he’d buy me CDs I liked.

  Once, my brother came home really messed up. I don’t know what he was on. He started beating the crap out of Dad and then he started in on me. I missed school again for a couple of days. Missing school made me really anxious. School, it was like an addiction. I had to go. I had to. And when I couldn’t get there, I would just get all anxious.

  When I went back to school, Mr. Garcia noticed the bruises. He started asking questions. You know, Mr. Garcia, he was too sincere for his own good. And really, his questions made me even more anxious.

  “It looks like it hurts.”

  “Not much,” I said.

  “Who did that? Who did that to you, Zach?” He sounded a little mad.

  “Some guy at a party,” I said. “I like to party.”

  “Really? A party, huh?”

  “Yup.”

  “Maybe you should stop going to those parties, Zach.”

  “Maybe I should.”

  I don’t think Mr. Garcia was buying my story. He asked me to come by after school.

  When the last bell rang, I really didn’t want to go see Mr. Garcia, but my feet took me there anyway. When I got to his room, his door was open and he had an open book of poems in his hand.

&n
bsp; “Sit,” he said. He put down the book of poems on his desk and I saw the title: Words Like Fate and Pain. I watched him as he took out his trumpet and played something real soft and smooth. Maybe he was trying to make me cry. Why was he trying to make me cry? When he finished playing, he looked at me. “Everything okay at home?”

  “Yeah,” I said.

  “Mom’s okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dad’s okay?”

  “Yeah, everything’s okay.”

  “What if I told you that I knew your mom suffers from depression?”

  I don’t know how he knew that. And I hated that he’d let me know that he knew. “It’s not so bad,” I said.

  “What if I told you that I know your dad drinks?”

  “It isn’t that bad.”

  “Maybe it is bad. Who hit you, Zach?”

  I got up from where I was sitting. “What if I told you that it’s none of your fucking business?” That’s what I said. “You’re just a teacher. Your job is here—in this fucking classroom.” I knew I was yelling.

  Mr. Garcia, he sort of gave me one of his smiles. God, his smile really tore me up. “No cussing in my classroom,” he said.

  “Okay,” I said.

  “Okay,” he said. “Look, Zach, I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  “I’m not upset.”

  “Okay,” he said. He wrote down his cell number and gave it to me. “Look, if you ever need anything, you just call.”

  I nodded. I took it. Another piece of paper.

  -3-

  Mr. Garcia had it wrong. I mean, it wasn’t as bad as all that. We had a decent house. And my dad liked having a nice lawn. I had it in my head that the nice lawn was my father’s way of telling the world that a real family lived there. A man, even a man who drinks too much, has to have some pride. Pride. Maybe God wrote that word on my dad’s heart.

  But the thing was that he spent more time with the grass than he did with me. That messed me up when I thought about it. That’s the thing about remembering. If remembering messed me up, then why do it?

  When I turned seventeen, my dad remembered that it was my birthday. I don’t know how that happened because he’d really been hitting the bottle especially hard. I mean, even for him, things seemed really bad. But he remembered. He remembered. Me. Zach.

  My mom was having an episode so I didn’t expect her to remember. And Santiago, I mean the guy didn’t even remember his own birthday. But my dad, hell, he remembered. He really remembered. Wow.

  He asked me what I wanted to do. I didn’t know. I just made something up. I told him I wanted to go hiking. I don’t know why I said that.

  And, you know, that’s what we did. We went hiking out in the desert. And it was beautiful and brilliant and amazing. And my dad only drank water and I didn’t smoke and, my dad, he knew the names of all the different kinds of cacti and bushes. I didn’t know he knew stuff like that. And he even smiled that day and it had been a long time since I’d seen him like that. And that really tore me up.

  I asked him how he knew about all the plants and their names.

  “My dad,” he said. “My dad taught me.”

  I wanted to ask him if he’d teach me too. But I didn’t.

  After the hike, we went out for pizza and we talked about things, not important things, but just things. I told him about Mr. Garcia, how he played the trumpet and Dad wanted to know if I had ever wanted to play an instrument, and I told him, “No. I’m not musical. But I like to draw.”

  “Really?” he said. “I didn’t know that.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I like to draw and I like to paint.”

  There was an almost-smile on his face. Maybe he was thinking of his father who had been an artist. “I’ve never seen anything you’ve done.”

  “I keep it all at school. In the art room.”

  “I’d like to see your work.” God, my dad looked so brilliant. Like there was a light inside him. He put his hand on my shoulder. “I mean it,” he whispered. He looked into my eyes. And it was really weird because I thought he was really looking at me. And I wasn’t used to that. I wanted to cry—but I didn’t.

  “Are you any good?”

  I knew he was making a joke.

  “I’m okay.”

  “I bet you’re better than okay.”

  Not that he knew. “I’m not awful.”

  “You’re a good kid,” he said.

  I wanted to tell him that I liked to drink and that I’d done coke and that I wasn’t a good kid at all. It killed me that he thought I was good. But I just sort of nodded. Even though I knew I wasn’t a good kid, I’m glad my dad said that—even though he was lying to himself.

  The really screwy thing was this: I got it into my head that maybe things could be different. Maybe things couldn’t be different for mom or for Santiago. But things could be different for me and my dad. Maybe they could be. That’s what I got into my head that night before I went to sleep.

  Maybe our lives would get better.

  Maybe Dad wouldn’t drink as much.

  Maybe I wouldn’t drink as much.

  Maybe we didn’t have to be so sad all the time.

  Maybe we didn’t have to walk around looking at the ground. Maybe we could look up sometimes and see the sky. I mean, why not? I was happy that night before I went to sleep.

  But nothing changed.

  My dad’s drinking got worse after that.

  My drinking got worse too.

  I never showed my dad any of my art. Maybe he’d never really wanted to see it.

  My mom started living internally—all the time. Her life had become one long episode.

  One night she climbed in my bed. She called me Ernesto. Ernesto, that was my father’s name. She reached down and put her hand between my thighs. I didn’t know what to do. I was stunned out of my mind.

  My heart was beating really fast and all these things were racing through my head. I jumped out of bed and threw on some clothes and I grabbed one of my dad’s bottles and ran out of the house. I didn’t come home for two days.

  When I came back no one said a word. It was as if I’d never been gone. Nothing got better.

  Adam is a big believer in change. I don’t know where that guy came from. Same place as Mr. Garcia—that’s my thinking. Monday through Friday he shows up. He says that in life you have to show up every day. He’s an expert at showing up. I wonder what kind of parents he had, him and his eyes that are as blue as the sea, eyes that see me but don’t see me. No one sees me. He tells me I should look in the mirror and say: “I am capable of change.” Like I’m really going to do that. God did not write change on my heart.

  I think sometimes I hate Adam.

  I think sometimes I want to get a bat and pretend he’s a windshield.

  My father wasn’t right about me. I’m not a good kid. Yeah, look, I’m just a piece of paper with the word sad and a bunch of cuss words written on it.

  A lousy piece of paper. That’s me.

  A piece of paper that’s waiting to be torn up.

  REMEMBERING

  I was talking to Adam in his office. I don’t know why we call it talking since really it’s an official appointment with my therapist. You know, therapist to patient. It’s not as if we’re friends. He was saying something to me. I guess I wasn’t paying attention. My mind wanders sometimes. And then I heard Adam ask me, “What do you see when you see that picture?”

  “What picture?”

  “The picture you’re staring at.”

  I guess I had been staring at the picture. I didn’t know what to say. “They’re your sons,” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “So, well, I guess I see your sons.”

  Adam, he doesn’t roll his eyes. He’s a real professional. But he does sometimes give people a snarky smile. That’s what he gave me. “But what does it make you think of?”

  “I have a brother.”

  “How old is he?”

  “He’s three
years older than me.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “His name’s Santiago.”

  “Do you have a picture like that, of the both of you—when you were little?”

  “Yeah. My mom had one in her room.”

  “What’s going on in the photograph?”

  “My brother is hugging me.”

  “How old are you in the photograph?”

  “Two.”

  “Are you smiling?”

  “Look, Adam, I don’t want to talk about the photograph. It’s just an old picture. It doesn’t mean anything.”

  “Okay. Listen, is it all right if I ask you a question, Zach?”

  “Yeah, sure, go ahead.”

  “Did you love your brother?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “No, Adam, I don’t.”

  He knew I was lying. I guess I didn’t care. Look, I don’t want to remember should count as I don’t remember. That’s what I was thinking.

  IN THE COUNTRY OF DREAMS

  I have this idea stuck in my head that you have to be born beautiful in order to dream beautiful things. God didn’t write beautiful on my heart. I’m stuck with all my bad dreams. Bad dreams for bad boys. I guess that’s the way it is for me. Look, there’s nothing I can do about it.

  DREAMS AND THINGS I HATE

  -1-

  I keep having this dream. It’s like being in hell. It’s like I’m being punished and I have to watch the same scary movie over and over. And even though I know the movie by heart, it still scares me because there’s always a monster lurking in the dark.

  That monster wants me dead.

  I wonder if I’m the only one who has a monster.