The Truth Is

by Nonieqa Ramos

  “Aw. You’re cold.” He starts taking off his hoodie, but I stop him mid unzip.

  “No.” I step back. “That’s okay. You need it.”

  “Bae—”

  “No need for a spat, young lovers.” Jane stretches and a button pops off her shirt. “I got an extra flannel you can have in my bag, under the fountain. Could you actually bring the bag back though? It makes for an excellent pillow.”

  “So do you.” Baldwin lays their head on Jane’s lap. I think Baldwin is pretty when they smile.

  Danny takes a step in my direction. “Thanks, hon,” he says to Jane. “I’ll just—”

  “No,” I answer passive aggressively as I step completely out of his reach. “I’ll get it.”

  I head towards the backpacks.

  Danny attempts to follow me but Sarah and Prisha have tied his sneaker laces together. The last giggles are behind me, the darkness ahead.

  The Underdogs have dug a trench under the fountain. It won’t be long before the caretaker discovers it and they’ll have to move on to new territory. I step down into the pit, knowing I can’t possibly be alone. Nature is like everywhere. Slimy, creepy nature. Yuck. I lurch forward, snatch the closest bag and unzip it.

  My phone flashlight reveals piles of McDonald’s napkins and two neatly folded T-shirts— stained with what I realize is blood. Oh God. Somebody must be on their period.

  In a panic I calculate the days till my own period—till my mind autocorrects itself, because it doesn’t matter how long. I’ll be back home TOMORROW.

  Our church collects food, clothes, diapers, and toys for the homeless. But never once have I considered collecting tampons. Shit, I know nothing about the world. I knew nothing about my family and their homophobia. I knew nothing about my racist-ass, ignorant-ass self. If there was a survey, I couldn’t even answer basic questions. Sexual orientation: ? Race: Human? Ethnicity: ? Emotional IQ: possibly retar—intellectually dis—differently abled?

  I grab the next bag, now more scared of what I’ll find in it than of what is slithering around me. I reach in and feel what turns out to be two toilet paper rolls and a used tube of toothpaste. Well, hallelujah! I can get through the night without a shower if I can finger-brush my sugar-coated teeth. Blow my runny nose on paper instead of my sleeve. The cold is giving me the sniffles.

  The roll is wrapped in unmarked blue paper. Synapses fire and I’m back to my violin recital, catching Danny in the janitor’s closet. Danny was stealing toilet paper. Duh.

  I finger-comb my hair into a bun, blow my nose and bury the tissue. Pop the cap on the toothpaste and begin to finger brush when, spitting into the pit, I think, What serendipity, I love Uncle Tom’s lavender toothpaste! . . . ’Specially since this is my damn toothpaste! Danny must’ve swiped it the first time he was at my place.

  I zipper up the bags. I’ve been gone too long. I find Jane’s spare flannel, throw it on, and head back to the fire with our pillows. I’m not ready to sleep with Danny. I mean if things keep moving this fast, we’ll be married by next week, divorced the next. I decide to say good night to the Underdogs and find my own place to crash. Blanca and I will have our first slumber party in years. I need to be close to her. Maybe if I’m patient she’ll give up on trying to get me to the theater and come back here, and things will be back to—the most normal they ever could be.

  “What took you so long?” Danny asks.

  Sarah is lying on her back. Prisha rubs her temples, her hands, her belly. To Sarah: “There aren’t any more.” To me: “Maybe Verdad can get you some Advil, huh Verdad?”

  I nod and Danny helps me distribute everybody’s backpack pillows. Prisha props up Sarah’s head with the backpack of McDonald’s napkins. Head cradled in her arms, Jane is snoring, Baldwin rising and falling with each of her husky breaths. But when Danny slides a backpack toward Jane, she reaches out her hand mid-dream and props her head on it without opening an eye.

  “Wow,” I whisper to Danny, gazing at Baldwin. They finally took off their glasses. “That is a gift.”

  “Survival. PS, just for your survival, don’t even accidentally touch one of them in their sleep. With what they’ve been through. Let’s just say they’ve become light sleepers.”

  “Jesus. Got it.” I load myself up with my violin and my backpack of books. “Gonna build me a house of brick nearby.” I look away from Danny’s disappointed face. “Is that okay?”

  “Of course it is. Yeah.” He hooks his hands in his pockets. “So—”

  I plant a quick peck on his lips. “So buenas noches.”

  “Good night.” His lips are as cold as my heart.

  Blanca’s grave is where I’ll make my bed tonight. I’m out of whatever zone I was in with Baldwin when I was the bat-following radar and proceed to trip my clutzy ass over every piece of matter in my path. Whatever the hell just crawled across my leg now has me feeling all creepy crawly up and down my body. I got to chill out.

  I make my way toward Blanca’s grave, expecting to see the familiar dangle of her feet. I wonder if I’ll see her breath the way I do mine. I’ll tell her about the stalled elevator that was my life now shooting through the ceiling like a rocket. I haven’t spoken to her in minutes, hours, eons. And for the first time I have confidences to share, secrets to tell.

  What would it mean to lose your virginity to a boy with the body of a girl?

  Can you have love without loss?

  Would you still be my friend now?

  If you were still here, would Danny and I have gotten together?

  Are Danny and I together?

  Am I in love?

  Would you, me, Fernando, and Danny all have gone out on a date?

  Heavy silence, the kind old novels call pregnant. But I do not want to be answered with riddles. Or with prayers.

  “Hello? Answer me, Blanca! I’m tired of chasing me. You! I can’t live without me. You! Fuck!”

  I’m kneeling in the dirt. I’m pulling my hair out. I’m punching the shit out of a tombstone. I’m being lifted off my feet. Hugged, held against a heart. Cradled like a fucking baby.

  “Verdad! Verdad! Baby. I got you. I got you.”

  I’m being rocked. I’m in a trance. The stars die behind a cloud like birthday candles blown out on a cake.

  After a long time, Danny says, “Can you tell me?”

  I can’t talk. But I can write. I fumble with my pockets and find it. My pen. I squirm out of Danny’s arms and start to write on my arm. He gently holds my wrist to stop me. He rolls up his sleeve to expose his own arm and guides my hand so that the pen rests on his skin.

  I write. And write.

  For the moon never beams without bringing me dreams

  Of the beautiful Boricua Blanca, just fourteen;

  And the stars never rise but I see the braces and wires

  Of the beautiful Boricua Blanca, only fourteen;

  And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

  Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

  In the sepulcher there by the city of broken dreams.

  In her tomb, only fourteen.

  Danny shivers. I’ve covered his whole arm with words. I drop my pen.

  We wear each other like fall jackets. Our fingers run like little kids jumping through the leaves. We taste lavender toothpaste in each other’s mouths and laugh. We hold each other’s bodies down and buoy each other’s hearts up, up, and far away from this fucking graveyard, this fucking planet.

  16

  Baldwin drives me home in the morning.

  When Baldwin pulls up to my house, I hop out, grab my backpack and violin, and lean into the passenger window. “Hey, am I gonna see you at school?” If it wasn’t for that banana incident in the cafeteria, I wouldn’t have known they were even enrolled.

  Baldwin shrugs. “I like school. Used to be good at it. But a fountain bath doesn’t cut it. My shorts are crispy. I smell. It’s embarrassing.”

  “You’re not going to school becaus
e you need a shower? But why not the locker room showers?”

  “Oh lawd, dealing with the school bathrooms is hard enough. You offering?”

  This is nuts, but . . . “Yes. We can shower. Then head off to school. My moms will be back”—I check my phone—“in a couple of hours. That gives us plenty of time.”

  “Holy Mary, soap, here I come!”

  I head up the porch stairs with Baldwin skipping behind me. Lay my violin down gently and fish for my keys in my backpack. My hat is crushed. My baseball bat is still in my scabbard.

  I open the three locks and twist the knob, but the door doesn’t open.

  “Huh. I’m so tired I can’t think straight.” I try again slowly. I shake the door. Kick it.

  “Honey. Verdad! Neighbors. They’ll call the cops on us.”

  “Call the cops on us? On me? This is my freakin house!”

  “Do you have anything on you to prove that?”

  “I don’t have to prove I live here!” If I do, I’m screwed. What would I do if a cop pulled up? Brown and black people do not fare well on porches outside locked doors. Fuck!!!!

  “Oh shit. I know what it is. My moms used the door stick. But wait . . .”

  “That means she is inside, honey. What’s her car look like?”

  “It’s a Toyota Camry.” I run my fingers through my hair and scan the street. Yup. “That’s her car in front of our neighbor’s house. Right across the street.” It didn’t occur to me to look.

  “Ma!” I pound on the door. I scope the curtains to see if there’s an eyeball peeking through them. “Open the damn door!”

  Nothing. No rustle of the curtain. No eyeball. “Aren’t you even gonna yell at me?”

  All I hear is a delivery truck. A car door slam. An engine warming up. “Are you kidding me, Ma? It’s like that?”

  “Let’s go.” Baldwin grabs my violin case and drags my backpack down the steps. “C’mon!”

  I grab the bat. If God don’t open the door for you, a baseball bat could surely bust open a window. “So that’s it, Ma? Bye Felicia?” Swing batta batta sw—

  Baldwin launches themself forward and grabs the bat. “Verdad, are you fucking crazy? Jail is just, just, yucky!”

  “Jail? No, no, no. I’m going to college, not jail. This is not my life!”

  “Please.” Baldwin begs with sugar on top. They crawl to the top step. Lower their head and stretch their hands out toward me, eyes pleading. “Please give me the bat.”

  I huff, I puff, but I hand it over. Hands in my pockets, I crumple, lean against the locked door. I feel a gum wrapper, lint . . . “When do we get to be done changing? To be butterflies?”

  “Don’t know.” Baldwin shoe gazes. Lifts their head. “Thing is, Verdad, maybe it isn’t us who is changing. Maybe we’re just more ourselves. Less of everybody else. And maybe the people we thought we knew are less the selves we thought they were.”

  “What?”

  “I’ve eaten only a pork bun and a bag of Mickey D’s I scooped out the trash in the past two days. I don’t know what I’m saying.”

  I am so damn tired. “Fuck! What am I supposed to do?” I dig deep into my pocket. Thirty crumpled dollars is all I have left to my name. I’ve got no messages from Mami on my phone. Is she going to cut my service? My stomach is angry. I’ve never been hungry for more than thirty seconds in my life before my mother and an armada of tías swooped in, armed with pots, pans, and secret recipes to slay the beast. And I want to change my panties!

  “My moms is mad. That’s all. This is temporary.”

  “I hope so.” Baldwin risks it and grabs my wrists. Tugs and tugs and tugs, leading me forward. Down the porch steps.

  I climb into to the car. “Ugh!” I slam my head against the passenger seat.

  “Damn. I was so excited about that shower.” They put the car in gear and pull out. “So, not to interrupt the drama currently in progress, but I have a few things to do. You could come. Or I could try to find Danny.”

  Find Danny and do what? I mean I’m gross. Even if I know Danny is gross, I don’t want him to see me gross. “Maybe I can go to school?”

  Baldwin’s glasses rise with his eyebrows.

  I sneak a glimpse myself in the side mirror. Yup. I look that bad. I get it now. Why the Underdogs were skipping school. So where can I go? Tía Sujei’s? I could easily find her office at the college. Then what? Sujei might take me in but she’d tell the entire East Coast my business. Am I willing to pay that kind of rent? My privacy in exchange for a place to stay? Is there an alternative?

  Then it comes to me.

  “Baldwin. Take a left.”

  “Why, Cinder-ella? That’s the interstate.”

  “We’re going to the suburbs. Time to pay my papi a visit.”

  17

  I can’t tell if it takes us just ten minutes to get there because of Baldwin’s driving or because my father and his family really live only ten minutes away. It’s not the smallest house on the block, maybe twenty-five hundred square feet, but most of the houses tower over his. The mansion my mother said my dad was living in has two stories, a porch and a yard. Fancy. Only his mansion needs a paint job. A piece of aluminum siding is rattling in the wind, threatening to fall off.

  “I’d offer to walk you in, but that will probably cause more problems than it will help.”

  “Thank you.” I look at Baldwin. Squeeze their hand. “Raincheck on that shower, okay?” They squeeze back.

  Baldwin leaves and I’m left to walk up three steps that feel like three hundred. The spin of the earth is no longer undetectable, and I am dizzied. I know for the first time that the ground I’ve stood on has never been still.

  I glance to my right and notice a pink bike leaning against a small tree. My dad left while I was learning to ride. Fun fact: My moms didn’t have time to finish the lessons and I still can’t ride a freakin bike.

  I skip back down the steps and run to the park across the street to center myself. Climb to the top of monkey bars.

  When I think about my father’s presence instead of his absence, all I can remember is kindness. My mother is the one who rushed me through everything. My dad is the one who took time to explain. My mother expected me to use all my time productively. My dad once opened the window and we both climbed out to play in the yard. My mother was so pissed when she locked us out, and we shrugged our shoulders and got Chinese for dinner. Perhaps that was foreshadowing.

  We’ve been strangers to each other for so long. Will he even recognize me? I don’t recognize me.

  No, that’s not true. These last few days have been a wild experiment, but there’s still a control. That is the part of me that will always be me and doesn’t give a shit what body it’s in, hetero or homo.

  Damn, I hate the word homo. I hate the word gay. It’s impossible not to when all I have ever heard gay used for is an insult.

  Queer. That’s better. Yes. I am queer! Queer is a magical word.

  Blanca: Took you long enough.

  So who am I? What is this body? Just packaging? A container? Because the only thing that matters in love is the heart, the brain, the soul.

  Which gives me a bigger headache. Because isn’t that what religion teaches? The body is just a shell. A vehicle. So who cares what’s under the hood? Or who’s sticking what in your hood. (Snort laugh.) But all of sudden when it’s about queer people, the body matters?

  Are these my real thoughts, or am I making excuses to do what I know is wrong?

  I scan the park, the mothers and fathers pushing strollers, kissing scraped knees.

  The wind blows my hair loose. Normally each asymmetrical imperfection of every strand would demand to be cut, pulled, or braided. But today my hair is a flag. Every thought a lyric to an anthem of me.

  I grab my pen and make a list on my leg where there is still space left to write. Things I am: A girl. A Boricua. A fucking genius. A seer. A mystic. An insomniac. An Underdog? An astroNOT. Queer. Pan like Baldwin said?


  Things I am not: a bad person. A good person can make mistakes that hurt other people sometimes.

  Like I did with Nelly.

  A bad person doesn’t give a shit. I give a shit.

  I climb down from the monkey bars and check the group message. Nelly is still on it. I message her privately, ask her if we can meet.

  I cross the street to my dad’s house. I reach to ring the bell. The door flings open. “Lo sabía!” my dad crows, holding his cell away from his ear.

  My dad with the hair that’s all salt and pepper, except for his mustache. Aside from the gray he looks just like that old family photo, the only one of the three of us who’s barely aged.

  My dad waves me into the foyer and motions for me to kick off my shoes. He’s back on the phone talking in English, which means he’s talking to my mother. Behind him, his wife holds a stack of towels. Beside her stands my replacement, the girl who gets to sit down to dinner with my father every night, a beautiful girl with pink lips, pinker cheeks, black hair, blacker eyes, a mini-me of his wife. A girl who needs my tuition for violin.

  “So that’s Verdad?” she says to her mom like I’m not standing there, throwing me shade.

  “Guess I don’t need no introduction,” I say to her. “So that’s her?” I say to my dad. My dad nods, holding the phone away from his ear, my mother screaming on the other end: Put her ass on the phone!

  “I heard that.” I hold out my hand. It’s going down.

  “Fair warning, mija—”

  “Don’t mija me.” I beckon with my fingertips. “Bring it.”

  My dad hands me the phone.

  “You locked me out the house?” I say.

  “She could have been murdered, raped, or worse!” says another voice.

  “Wait. Sujei?” Conference call? And there’s a “worse”?

  “She disobeyed the rules of my house, Sujei.”

  “You don’t put rules in front of what is right.”

  “Oh, Sujei, so we’re gonna be all righteous now. When Ma took all my shit—”

  “Hey.”

  “And threw it in the street, did you stop her?”