December
Like a stolen gun, the hard, cold metal of the silver bleachers felt like street fire burning a hole through the back of Victor’s black jeans. He was alone. Except for the white light of the moon, it was dark. He liked the way the stillness of the late hour wrapped its arms around him like a gentle hug. The sky was holding him close in her arms, cradling him against the comfort of the electric stars.
The football field was the perfect place to hide. Here, he could cry. Here, no one would fuck with him. If there was one thing Victor hated most, it was people messing with him. Especially when he had so much on his mind.
Victor had been seventeen since last Thursday. He was the spitting image of his Mexican mother and Puerto Rican father. Everybody said so. He was guilty of his mother’s hot temper and his father’s blue depression. Being like his parents irritated him so much he decided to really piss them off and not go to college in the fall.
Because it’s what they want me to do.
Tears had been rising in his throat since dinner when his nosy-ass mother asked about his unfinished college applications. His parents sat on both sides of him at the dinner table. His mother’s sour face was pinched and creased with concern, her mouth mashing bites of overcooked tamales with angry teeth. He waited until they fell asleep and the rumble of his father’s snoring and the deafening volume of the TV careened around the dark, shadowy corners of their cramped third-story apartment before Victor made a quick escape.
The urge to cry was a powerful feeling for him because it was a sensation he rarely felt in his life. But now, the icy night air seemed to cling to the edges of the tears stinging the corners of his eyes. He blinked. The first one fell and sliced his cheek.
He looked down at his watch, something he did out of habit when he was unsure of what to say or do or feel. The watch had once belonged to his grandfather, a man who had devoted his entire life to the military.
He had something to die for.
It was 12:12 on a Friday night in late December and a low scarlet moon blanketed the empty, somewhat ominous high-school football field with a pale crimson glow. The Berkeley air seemed messy and drunk with its usual aromatic symphony of dirty protesters, patchouli incense, potent marijuana, and the discontentment of the sons and daughters of former hippies turned hipsters and still-in-mourning Deadheads. Behind him, beyond the cluster of hovering oak trees and the cracked sidewalks, an occasional carload of teenagers would zip by, filled with blaring radios and voices shouting to be heard.
Victor sat like he always sat, with feet apart, toes pointed outward, right shoulder leaning a little more forward than his left. One hand was around the green neck of a wine cooler bottle and the other brought the last drag of a Marlboro to his lips.
He breathed in deep, smelling his own fear and anxiety, which was becoming strangely all too familiar. He flicked his cigarette and the sparks scattered as the Marlboro landed gracefully on the dark field like a muted firecracker.
Victor looked down at the blades of grass licking the sides of his Doc Martens. Sometimes he wished the ground would open up and devour him, eat him alive.
Come get me.
Even though it was months away, everybody was already talking about the stupid-ass prom. His girlfriend Isabella said her dress was something tight and burgundy and it would bring out the new highlights she’d streaked her brown curls with. She promised Victor when he saw her on prom night, she’d take his breath away. He would oblige: rent the tux, buy the corsage, pick her up on time, smile through dinner and feign adoration while they swayed to a love song. Naturally, his mind would be elsewhere but his smile would not falter.
Victor was proud of the fact he’d mastered the art of not letting it show. He wondered if he’d inherited this trait from his father who secretly fueled dreams of becoming a professional magician and constantly irritated Victor’s unimpressed mother with botched tricks. Victor fooled the best of them, but none of them mattered as much as Isabella. She hadn’t done anything wrong. She just fell in love with the wrong guy. But she deserved the truth. Her family was messed up, and in a sense, Victor was all she had.
Maybe that’s why I’ve stayed with her for so long. Because she needs me. And because if anybody knew the truth, they would kill me.
Victor ran a hand through his dark curls, cut short on all sides, a contradiction of chaos and calm. He bit the inside of his cheek, contemplated another cigarette and hanging himself from the goal posts.
That would solve the problem, wouldn’t it? I’ll just excuse myself from this fucked-up lonely life and move on to the next one. Just like that.
Done.
Victor gulped down the rest of his old-school citrus-flavored wine cooler, shot the empty bottle across the field like a green rocket, and reached into the white plastic bag from 7-Eleven to grab another. He pulled the bottle out, mesmerized by the sight of his own hand. As if they were moving in slow motion, his palm and knuckles wrapped around the body of the bottle.
Victor always thought of his parents when he looked at his hands. He thought of his father and his failed career as a magician because he couldn’t seem to get even the simplest tricks right. He thought of his mother and the two years of piano lessons she’d forced on him and the brutal summer she insisted he join the Little League team. The glove didn’t fit and the piano was slightly out of tune.
He had the same tender palms, smooth olive skin, and matching freckle on the knuckle of the left index finger as his father. Like his mother, Victor’s hands were always clean and always reaching for something to drink, smoke, or throw.
As he sat in the moonlight staring out at the East Berkeley High School football field, the fifty-yard line caught his eye. For a second, he imagined someone was standing there, waiting.
Someone who could love him.
Or maybe just hold his hand.