Love War Stories Read online

  “There is a great amount of work that academics do. They remember people, they resurrect long-forgotten reputations, they restore people to their place in history. And they commemorate everything; they can see the writer in all her failings and also appreciate her moments of glory. My mother is an academic, and I want to dedicate this evening and exhibition to her. Thank you.”

  I tumble off the stage and look for my mother. I have spent my life holding on to my father. She finds me first and gives me a hug. And I hold on to her.

  “Of course,” Maceo murmurs into my ear when I ask him to dance. I feel the solidity of him when I put my hand on his shoulder and he takes my right hand in his. We dance by the picture of Julia and Grullón in New York. She sits in a chair, dressed in black, with haughty pearls fit for a doctor’s wife around her neck. Grullón, dressed in gray, stands behind her. I know on this night he took her out with his bourgeois friends. But the focus of the photo is so tight that Jose assumed that Grullón’s hands were in his pockets. That tells one story. But if his hands were on the small of her back—that tells another. And if Mr. Jack Agüeros had told the story of Julia and this evening out with Grullón, he would tell of the focus on her and of Grullón leaning into the photo like an afterthought. But if my father told the story. If my mother told the story. If I told the story . . .

  SUMMER OF NENE

  I was there when he fell. We were fucking around in Central Park. Had been smacking girls on their asses and running away. Then one started yelling real loud and this cop appeared out of nowhere so we just started running. Nene was behind me, he was always smaller, more frail—that cat was always sick, ever since he was a little kid, there was always some shit wrong with him. So I’m just jettin’, but I always used to look over my shoulder for him. That was a habit. But this time I heard him scream before I looked, and I saw my man tumble over some rocks. And I imagined the rocks pierced his back, and he’s stuck there for life. Me and the cop got to him at the same time, and my instinct was just to grab him, but this cop dude was like, “No, you should leave him where he is, you’ll hurt him more.” But everything in me was fighting to pull him up. He looked all fucked up, like someone dropped Humpty Dumpty, and I wanted to put him back together. Set everything right, so he’s whole again. Nene was always strong, I mean he was always sick, but you know he was always down to go outside and terrorize the neighborhood with us. And he would play with that sick shit too. See, everyone on the block knew about his illnesses, hospitalizations, etc., and no matter what he’d done the previous day, they always let the shit go. So sometimes I would have to leave him where he was because he wasn’t going to catch it, but my ass would.

  It didn’t even start with him sucking my dick. No foreplay shit like that. I watch movies and it always starts like that, the inevitable creep to the dick. Nene was sleeping over at my house, and it was finally quiet at three in the morning, and that’s when he starts. I have my back to him with nothing but my underwear on, and then I feel it next to me, on my skin. Right up against my ass. Then he’s pushing harder, trying to find the hole. He breaks through, and it’s a whole new life.

  The next morning he looks run down, coughing all over the place, so my moms takes him home because she’s scared I’ll get whatever he has. But she doesn’t understand that I have never caught what Nene has. But she becomes the concerned mother all of a sudden and takes him away.

  After the fall, we are sitting in the hospital waiting. And I cry, but not those tears of sadness, it’s the tears of anger. The kind where you can’t breathe, my face gets all hot, and I can’t hold it in at all. Guttural noises are scattered in with my language. My fists are in a ball, and I just want to hit myself. My mother doesn’t understand this rage. If only she would just shut the fuck up and let me cry . . . all she’s done is tell me that I have to be strong. But what does strength have to do with love?

  He doesn’t get out of the hospital for weeks, and when he does, he can’t walk anymore. I’m on the stoop, and we see him coming down the street, but Nene doesn’t look all sad. For us nothing has changed, so we’re just happy to have him home. His mother won’t let him come out today though. She says he has to rest in bed first, figure out how to go to the bathroom, shit like that.

  The next day, me and Kenny are just waiting and by, like, eleven, he’s still not down there. So I stand on the sidewalk and I yell, “Neeeneeee, Neeeneeee,” over and over until his moms sticks her head out the window and starts yelling at me. “Don’t you know he can’t walk? Get your lazy ass upstairs and knock on the door like a normal person.” I laugh and run up because at least I know he can come out and hang with us. He’s sitting in his bed when I get there. The lock of hair on his forehead is wet. And I’m like, “My man you need a haircut, you look like John Travolta and shit.” His house is mad hot. I pull the covers off of him and his legs look like my sister’s, thin and pale. Not me. I’m already brown but this burning summer has me even darker, so if I was sick you wouldn’t be able to tell just by looking at me. You can see everything written on this cat’s face. On his body. I pick him up and put him in his chair. Then I wheel him to the bathroom, but I make the ride fun, I’m crashing into the wall, I try to zoom here and there, but, in reality, his apartment is too small for that. I call his mother to shower him. I’d be scared to undress him, to see him naked. I always have my back to him, and it’s always a surprise. I expect it whenever he’s at my house, but I can’t tell you the precise moment, only that it’s after the house is quiet. I tell her I’ll be downstairs waiting for him. She’s like, “You better not fuck around, I need you to come back up here and carry Nene down.”

  I go downstairs and have all this energy, but all I can do is wait for Nene. Kenny sits on the stoop, but I’m on the sidewalk, walking from here to there, the length of the stairs, and I’m telling him a story real loud. Then Jessica, this girl in my eighth-grade class who has the fattest ass, walks by. And she’s like, “Hey Jimmy, what’s up?” Then Kenny perks up. She stands in front of me and the way she moves from side to side, I know she’s showing off for me, and I give her that papi smile. In that instant, I’ve moved from boy to man. I think of her under me. I know who I’m supposed to be. With Nene though, I know who I am. She starts laughing at whatever shit I tell her, and she glitters in the sun. Midlaugh—hers—Nene appears. His stepfather brought him down and barks at me to get his wheelchair. He leaves Nene at the bottom of the stoop, and I run upstairs. When I get back, I’ve forgotten all about Jessica.

  I never realized how important words are until I see them fight. I scrutinize them to see what it’s like to be in a real grown-up relationship. They spend all their time in front of the TV now. No giggles coming from her bedroom. No desire to be together, alone with their love. When I come in, I sit in the living room with them because if they are going to get live, they’ll do it with me there. It won’t matter. What they have to say to each other is much more important. I’ve never seen so much of my mother before this summer, so much of her emotions. Sure, she’s beefed with her other boyfriends, but I’ve never paid attention before. It held no interest for me. In the middle of their yelling, I look at the picture of them next to the TV. They’re at a picnic, and he’s hugging her from behind. The way they argue though it’s like the fights you see on TV. It’s like they don’t have their own words. She says things like, “How can you do this to me?” and “Don’t you love me anymore?” Her speech may not be real, but I know her pain is. Even if her reaction is straight out of a soap opera.

  I can see the arteries in her heart choking her. The way she can barely breathe and the tears streaming down her face. Cutting off her breath.

  It almost breaks my heart.

  He says things I’ve heard before too: “You make me do this. You’re overreacting. I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  I can almost mouth along and anticipate what their next words will be. And it’s the same fight every few days. This time, though, she punches th
e wall and leaves. He does nothing that I don’t expect: he doesn’t cry, he doesn’t sit in a chair and try to talk to me about it. Nothing. He does what he is supposed to do. He swears at the slammed door. And takes off a few minutes later saying he doesn’t need this shit. Then there is silence.

  In the middle of the summer, Kenny’s mother goes to PR, and the first night she’s gone, he invites me, Nene, and a few females over. As soon as the girls get there, I start to get nervous. We sit on the living room floor and play spin the bottle. But the chick gets to decide where she’s going to kiss the guy. Jessica spins first and she gets Kenny and kisses him on the cheek. Rebecca spins next and she gets Nene; she giggles nervously, stands up, and kisses him on the cheek. But when Jessica spins again, she gets me, and she takes me into Kenny’s mom’s room and just keeps kissing and kissing me on the mouth. We both come out cheesing because everyone is staring at us. I eye Nene, but he looks beyond us.

  As soon as the girls leave, Kenny turns to me and asks me what happened with Jessica.

  “Naw, nothing really happened. It was no big deal.”

  “Yeah, tell us what happened,” Nene chimes in before he turns around and goes down the hall to the bathroom.

  “No big deal? Is that why you had that Kool-Aid smile on your face? Come on man, tell us what happened. Did you touch her titties? Anything?”

  “Naw, she was talking at first waiting for me to kiss her, then she must’ve got tired of waiting and kissed me. She’s cute, but you know, I’m not really feeling her.”

  “Nigga, are you gay? What’s not to like? That bitch is fine.”

  By the time Nene returns, Kenny has moved on and is telling me about him and Rebecca.

  We never speak about what we do. Our words come in the form of knots in our hearts, glances, and brief touches on the hot of my back. After the girls go home, we all go into Kenny’s room to sleep. He has two twin beds, and Nene and I crawl into one of them. I know he won’t touch me tonight because Kenny is here, but I can’t sleep. He’s so close to me. And I don’t think he will understand about Jessica. That there is no desire there. It’s not so much mechanical, but I love the fact that I can touch her in front of so many people. The flaunting of it. And when I let her kiss me, I think of Nene. That he could sit across from me, spin bottles, and that we could kiss in front of two, three, six people. He’s asleep and his breath is against my neck, and it warms my entire body. I push against him, so I can feel the part of his lips on my back. And maybe this is as public as we can get.

  It has to be the hottest day we’ve had all summer. But, of course, we say that every day. The little girls across the street have been running back and forth to the bodega all morning, sucking on Icees and limbers. Kenny and I are too uncomfortable to even talk. We’ve been waiting for Nene to come down for, like, at least half an hour, but in this heat it seems like two. I lie back on the step and squint up at the sun and wonder how the fuck it can be so blazing. When Nene gets downstairs, he’s pale as shit, and I’m like, how come this dude doesn’t get any darker in the summer. It’s hot out here.

  “Damn, I just found out I have to go to Wilson High this year,” Nene says when his stepfather leaves.

  This comes as a blow because for the past few days we’d been making plans for how we were going to take care of Nene during the school year. How we were going to take turns picking him up in the morning and taking him to school, carrying his books, and shit like that.

  “Why?” Kenny and I ask.

  “Richmond High says they can’t accommodate students in wheelchairs. This sucks man, can’t do shit because of this wheelchair. Everything is getting all fucked up.”

  Kenny and I don’t say anything to that. We can see that Nene is about to cry. This is the only time we’ve seen him get upset about the wheelchair.

  “Damn, and that’s a tech school, what are you gonna do there?” Kenny asks.

  “I don’t know, man. I don’t think I even know someone who goes there.”

  “Yeah, me neither.”

  We sit in silence, and behind my sunglasses I watch Nene. He’s sweating a lot. The back of his legs stick to the cloth of his seat. The sun makes it unbearable to just be in my shorts, so I can imagine how miserable he must be now.

  “Man, it’s too hot to be out here, I’m going back in. Jimmy, take me upstairs. I’ll see you guys later,” Nene says.

  “Naw, man, don’t go. We can go to my house and chill in the AC or we can go somewhere,” I say.

  “No, I’m just going to get back in bed,” Nene says. “I’ll find you guys later.”

  Kenny and I eventually make it over to his house instead. We lie under the AC, even though his mother will kill him if the bill is too high when she gets back, and watch TV until Kenny asks me how long I think Nene can make it.

  For once I allow myself to take the question seriously: “He’s always been sick. You weren’t there when he transferred into our third-grade class. He fainted the first day, but then he came in the next day and punched this kid who had laughed at him in the face. He’s a tough little fucker, but I don’t know, man. This summer has been worse than usual, but that’s probably just because of the accident.”

  When I had taken him upstairs, he had his arms around my neck and for the first time ever he kissed me. It’s the same way with the sex, he rushes in, no soft kisses, but insistent and throbbing. And when he pulls away—because it’s always him pulling away—I feel sapped and like my world isn’t the same; it’s depleted. He takes my strength from me, but it’s just to take, because he never gets stronger.

  Jessica stands above me and dares me to kiss her. Kenny leans against a car and smirks at me. She’s wearing a tank top, and I can see that she’s not wearing a bra. She has long legs that are barely covered by her tiny black shorts. She’s fine, and I can see how pretty she will be in the years to come. I lean back and lick my lips. I tell her to come here, and when she leans in, I kiss her. I taste every corner of her mouth, and I think about TV and how people fall in love, have families, and spend lives together. Not like it is around here; people love for a little while. My mother’s last boyfriend was around for a year, but before that she had had boyfriends here and there. And I wonder what makes love last.

  All week I’ve been waiting for his mother and stepfather to leave for the DR for a week. She asked if I could stay with Nene. I got my moms to agree real quick. I’ve been fantasizing about how we can act like a married couple. Watch videos in bed. Eat cereal when we want or just whatever we like. Nene’s mother said she was going to leave money and food in the refrigerator for us. I take a shower before I get there and try to look a little nicer than I have all summer. I knock on the door and my heart is thumping. I thought about buying him flowers or something, but I didn’t know how that would look or how he would feel about that so I just show up empty-handed. He opens the door, and I smile at him like I do at Jessica. He acts pissed and turns and goes into the living room.

  “Hey, what’s wrong, man?”

  “Nothing, man.”

  “Oh.” I reach out to smooth his hair that is flopping down on his forehead, so he won’t be hot, but he mad grills me. I take my hand away and think about what could be bugging him. Kenny probably told him about Jessica. “Yo, man, aren’t you excited that we’re going to spend all this time together?”

  I’m not sure if I should proceed because we never talk about what goes on between us. But I will burst if I sit here and don’t say anything. I’ve been looking forward to being alone with him, just so we can have this one week, even if it’s the only one that we’ll ever have together. So I gather the courage. I march over to his chair and pick him up. He doesn’t say anything. In his room, I lay him on his bed, and he tries to look away. I take off his shirt and kiss him on his neck. I pull down his shorts and rub my hands over his legs. I work my way up and down with my tongue. I finally put him in my mouth, and he quivers and quivers under me until he can’t move anymore.

  In
the middle of the night, he wakes me up and asks if it’s true, if it’s true about Jessica.

  “What is?” I mumble.

  “I’ve seen her checking for you. She’s always asking Kenny where you’re at.”

  “You know she likes me. Especially from Kenny’s party. I don’t like her. I kissed her another time other than that but that’s only because Kenny was there.”

  “So why kiss her then?”

  I explain that she comes looking for me. Usually I can keep from doing anything with her, but sometimes she persists.

  He lies on his back and whispers, “That’s not a really good reason. You kiss her because you like her, or you don’t kiss her because you don’t like her.”

  I stay quiet. Our silence and the air conditioner are the only sounds that hang between us. He’s right and he’s wrong. I turn over the inevitable, that this summer will come to an end, and in next year’s school hallways there will be no Nene, and Jessica will surround me at every turn. I watch him sleep, and at least I know that this will never deteriorate like my mother’s relationships; we’ll only be left with the pretty hum of this love. And the last thing that we won’t remember is the slamming of doors.

  The next day when I bring Nene outside to meet Kenny, he shivers in my arms. The sun melds us together as we stick to each other. And all I can do is look at him in public, this one time, no back to his, his breath on the front of my neck. I’ll never have the words. I think that’s better—they could destroy, never tell what’s in the heart, something close, but they could trap the wrong sentiment, the wrong what I was trying to get at and Nene would get stuck there. Under my arms, he stops moving, and both our hot hearts are sticking to the hot concrete.