Work Text:
It’s all he was. It defined him. His aloneness.
Maybe it’s because he was, in a way, an only child. His two older sisters, they were a lifetime older, and their kids were too young. His brother, ten years senior, was in jail. So, he was alone. Him and his stone-wall father.
Since the war and the death of his mother, his dad was never the same. In reality, he didn't really know what his father was like before this because he came back from the war when he was three years old.And then there was the fact that his mother died, but he didn't like to talk about that.
He walked to his room holding a cracker.
The room was solitary as well. Plain, cream-colored walls, stained and naked. A single twin-sized bed with a pathetic side table and an alarm clock. The windows were small and dusty, disclosed by the lack of curtains, and opposite to them was a closet. A coke-brown desk stood tiredly in the corner with a slouching lamp. When he walked to the wooden surface, he noticed his journal was out. No pen, no eraser. Nothing. Alone. He picked it up and started from the first page. December 4, 1985. It was written four years ago. At least, his handwriting had improved. Somewhat.
The thing about his journal was that he never wrote about his feelings in it. It mostly revolved around his thoughts and actions. That’s how his father raised him to be. And that’s why it was a journal, not a diary. The journal was like him. Apathetically filled and flat. His sentences short. His conversations minimal, to people, to paper. But the journal was different in the way that it was filled with things that he could not let go of.
In his own way, that’s how he made up for his lack of friends. He used it for comfort. He wrote things he experienced from an outside perspective. Like he wasn't there. Like he was another person watching his life.
But he never wrote about his feelings.
Not when he had his first kiss. Not when his mother died. Not ever.
The first page was filled with shit that no one needed. Random bits and pieces of poetry and quotes. They were all cheesy. But, there was one that stood out. One that was surrounded by squiggly lines. He wrote something about the book itself. About books just being dead, tattooed trees. It was blunt, but so was he. There was nothing anyone could do. He wrote strange things in it, too. He wrote what he thought; the spontaneous collection of random ideas floating in his head, writing only the ones important enough to remember. But not his feelings.
As he flipped the page, he saw a list of groceries. They never got crossed off or marked after being written. And the next page was a recipe of how to make a sandwich when a woman wasn’t home. But then he crossed it out and wrote "sorry Mom".
His journal was how he coped with everything. But he didn’t use that word. It had emotion all over it.
His hands, rough and masculine, gently lifted the pages. He kept flipping until he found the page he wanted. The one about the boy who just moved from Mexico. Uriel Almeida. He was unknowable.
His eyes danced on the paper. A solo act.
He read his comments on what he thought of the boy. What he looked like. Tall, pale, skinny, with loads of inky curls. His lips full. His details were curious but explicit. Every now and then he would write something else, how his day was at school. How his favorite football team won the Superbowl. He wrote about his first time drinking beer. It was gross and he threw up. But he didn’t write that he felt faint and sick and how his throat burned with the alcohol. He wrote about his times with Uriel. How they met at the soccer tryouts when both of them didn’t make it. When both of them sat on the bench. When both of them accidentally placed their hands atop each other so he yelped and dove to the other end.
He wrote about going to his house for the first time. How he was an only child, too. How his parents were opposite of what he had. Loving. Open.
He wrote about the time, three years after meeting him, when Uriel told him he liked boys and girls. But he didn’t write about what he felt about that. He didn’t write that he felt confused, too.
He kept flipping the pages, hoping to see the end of where he stopped writing about the boy next door. The dates rushed past and blended into each other. January to February, March completely skipped. Continuously he wrote about the boy and his day with him. Uriel was his only friend. And he was the best thing he could’ve asked for.
He passed when Uriel got jumped on the streets. He passed when they had ice cream together. He passed when Uriel told him he was moving back to Mexico. He passed the page when Uriel left.
But he didn’t write how shattered his heart was.
The dates continued as the right end of the book got thinner, but the scribbles and scrawls had his name all over the pages in between. Uriel, Uriel, Uriel. The pages flipped rapidly, never once writing about his anguish of losing his friend. More of the memory of him. No. The memoria.
Uriel lived within his words. He was eternal. Every page had his scent, nonexistent, but sensory. His heart was there. His being was there. Finally, in the last entry, he broke his rule:
I think I’m in love with Uriel Almeida.
He stopped. No way did he write that. He couldn’t even recall writing about that. His eyes flickered to the date. January 9, 1989. It was just three months ago.
He was in his pickup up truck, parked in the middle of the dry, open patch five miles from his house. His dad wasn’t home. And he brought beer. And his journal. And his pen. He only wrote the truth when he was drunk.
In frustration, he chucked the book across the room and paced. As he did so, he glared at the book until he felt it glaring back. When his gaze snapped up, he saw it dented the metal closet door. He loathed the thing that made him alive.
So, he burnt it.
Charging into the kitchen, he ripped open the drawer and snatched the matches. He ran to the living room and struck two of them. Opening the fireplace gate, he tossed the matches onto the wood with the book.
Behind him, he heard a voice.
“I think you should make a friend. That book isn’t doing you any favors, Luís.”
“Neither are those damn cigarettes, Dad.”