AT THE YA, in the dimly lit basement, I help Rafe set up tables and a platform and move large speakers onto the risers in the front of the room.
I called him after work to make sure he knew we were still… friends or whatever, and to see if he wanted to run, so when he said he had to set up for some event they’re having here tonight, I said I’d come help and then hung up before he could tell me not to. He’s avoided looking at me since I got here, though, lifting and dragging like a machine. And every time he gets near me, it kindles a flame in my stomach, making me want to reach for him, feel his warmth, smell him.
“So,” I say as we’re setting up the last chairs in rows. “The kids say you never date anyone.”
This is the tidbit that’s stuck in my mind. Carlos said it almost as a throwaway comment, but I’ve been thinking about it ever since. For all that Rafe obviously has a lot of people in his life who need something from him, it seems like maybe he doesn’t need anyone.
Rafe stops, a chair in each hand. “And you trust teenagers to have the scoop on my intimate personal life?”
“Well, do they?”
Rafe sighs, puts the chairs in place, and sinks down on the platform we set up. “Well, I’m busy and people have a lot going on,” he says vaguely.
“So, they’re right. You don’t… date or whatever?”
“Yeah, it’s been a while,” he says slowly, leaning back on his palms.
“You were in love with Javier, huh?”
He sits up quickly.
“What? Why would you think that?” He’s studying me intently.
“Um. Just your face when you talk about him.” I used to watch Pop’s face when my mom would get home from the grocery store or from work. The way his eyes followed her every movement, keeping track of even the smallest gesture like it was important. The way he smiled with his whole face and his shoulders relaxed when she was near him.
“No. Well, yeah, at first. But then…. He was the best friend I’d ever had. The only person besides my mom who looked at me and thought I could be someone. Even my mom…. After—” He looks sideways at me. “After I went to prison, she never looked at me the same. But Javi…. Maybe I was just desperate for someone not to think I was a scumbag junkie criminal, but, man, I would’ve done anything for him.”
I sit next to him, our knees almost touching. It’s a strange kind of closeness, like we’re kids sitting on a curb or something, swapping secrets in between games.
“I was a kid when we met. Twenty-four. But I already felt like my life was over.” His voice is strained. “Felt like, who was gonna hire me after they saw that checked box on the job application. It’d just go right into the trash. And—” He leans forward, knees on his elbows, staring blankly. “—who was ever gonna want to be with me? Make a life with an ex-con.” He spits the word out, shaking his head.
It’s the other phrase that gets me, though. Make a life. It’s the first indication I’ve gotten of what Rafe wants. What he hopes for. How he thinks things work—like a life is something you can create rather than something that’s dumped on you.
“I didn’t want people to be scared of me,” he continues. “But they were. Anyway. Javi… got me. Man, without him I would’ve been just like all the shitheads I’d been hanging around with when I got sent up.
“He was my sponsor at NA. The relationship between a sponsor and a sponsee is intense. Intimate. You lay all your shit down for that person. You have to. And he didn’t judge me. He didn’t treat me like a kid. He gave me his shit in return. It was the first time I’d talked honestly with another man about being gay.”
He looks at me and his expression is open. This is the most I’ve heard him say at once.
“Um, you said ‘at first’—you were in love with him at first?”
Rafe looks down, embarrassed, but then he laughs. “Yeah. It was so embarrassing.” He shakes his head. “One night after a meeting, he asked me to help him take some boxes from his car up to his apartment. When we were done, he got me some water or something, and when he turned to give it to me—” He grimaces. “—I kissed him. I don’t know what I was thinking. That he’d used the boxes as a ploy to get me into bed or something. Hell, I don’t know. He dropped the water, the glass smashed, and he pushed me away. I was fucking mortified. I worshipped him. Thought he had it all together. I wanted to be him. But right then, fuck, I had never felt so stupid.”