Juliana Lamy

You never really know what your mind’s gonna run to when you’re dropped in the middle of a perfect quiet. I’m walking down Sherman and Main, about to hit the bookstore, and the sky’s staring back at me blue as anything, like somebody took a slice of the hottest star they could find and wrapped it around the world. It’s a weird sky. No clouds, no sun, just this unbelievable ice blue like the world’s folding in on itself, all those glaciers at the poles tearing through the air right above my head.

I always remind people of other people. I’m used to it by now, having somebody else borrow my face for a little while. Cause I’m that hard thing people throw their memories against. I’m what they bounce off of right before they cut through the air and get back to who they really belong to. Before they section that sheet of atoms draped between us, rip apart that fabric wall till the strips are laying down at our feet like leaves. Till we’re just staring at each other across that gaping throat the tear makes.

It happens after five but before seven. You know, when the sun’s dripping down the sky, brazed orange up against a growing darkness. The fading sunlight slinks through the space around it until both things find themselves inside of each other, figure out they can make the softest purple so they do. It’s not dark yet and I’m two blocks away from home. Maybe it’s three.

I usually cut through the empty lot right behind the beauty supply store on sixth. The chain-link fence runs parallel to the lot.

There’s a hole in the fence that leads up pretty beautifully right up to my street. All I have to do is walk across the concrete partition that leads across the canal and I’m golden. I almost drowned in that canal once. And I know that every time I cross it, it feels like my lungs are full of water again, like my own panic’s got its arms wrapped around my chest again.

Nico pulled me out, dragged me onto the barren narrow bank. And when I opened my eyes, coughing, all I could think about was how his head cut against the glass blue sky like a fucking sun. And if I thought that I kind of liked the way his eyes got all big and scared for me, kind of liked how their pretty green made me think about saturday mornings in the grass behind my grandma’s backyard, well… nobody needed to know that.

I’d seen him sometimes in the cafeteria, with the other Colombian kids, but having somebody drag you out of a canal? It changes things, makes you close. So when I started going everywhere with Nico, walking to school with him, going home with him, playing with him on the weekends… people didn’t think I was gay, they thought I was grateful. Shit, I ran with it.

I think he knew. Before I even told him, I think he—

I’m crossing the street in front of the post office and a royal blue Chevy Tahoe misses me by like half a foot. My heart falls through my ribcage, into my stomach. Stays there long after the truck’s gone. I’d always thought that there had to be an easier way to let everybody know how far along you were in your midlife crisis, but trucks seem to be the way to go down here. Cars have already started to swerve around me by the time I start to get out of the street.

I’m almost there. I can see the Family Dollar up ahead, so I’m less than a block away from the beauty supply shop.

I always love visiting my grandma (not the Cuban one that hates me; the black one that hates my mom) in Wynwood. She’s just a city over, not that far, so I walk. I go for her, stay for the art, the streets of murals, that kind of shit that would make white classicists pass the fuck out.

With her there’s this love inside a four bedroom ranch-style that wraps around me, leaves me warm for days on end. Then I get the walls of screaming colors, stark blues and greens and yellows and pinks and oranges and reds yelling just to yell just to yell. Screaming and screaming and screaming at me until something inside me picks up the key and starts giving as good as it gets.

Liberty City’s where my heart got built, where it learned to pump blood through me, where it’s probably gonna stay. But Wynwood? Wynwood makes my soul shake something fucking awful inside me, so hard my teeth rattle. Makes my soul want to take over, turn my body into an afterthought, into postscript.

I think my mom can see it sometimes when I come home, maybe. My soul leaving and my heart staying and me, caught up in the middle not choosing. Less because I can’t and more because I don’t want to have to.

My mom hates her mom just as much as my grandma hates her. Think maybe it has something to do with when she got pregnant with me. My mom sees my grandma in me, Wynwood in me, and I think she loves me harder because she’s trying to get rid of both. Trying to Clorox that shit right out of me with her sacrifice, her twelve-hour nursing shifts at Jackson Memorial, the bikes, the phones, the skateboards, the clothes the clothes the clothes, the jackets, the jeans, the shirts, the bags. Tommy Hilfiger would want to marry her on the spot if he could see my fucking closet.

I think that’s when it started, this vicious thing between them—when I was inside my mom, asleep, unborn. When I was inside her and my grandma found out that my dad was white (no, not just white. Cuban. worse). When my grandma saw her past, laid out in front of her. Years and years and years of hearing nigger negro sucio mono, of being spit on, of avoiding Little Havana like the plague came back and picked up a mortgage there.

So growing up I always felt it. But here’s the thing—my mom and grandma hated each other but my mom would never keep me from her. That’s the thing with my family—we’re loyal to each other, even when we don’t like each other. Loyalty drinks up the hate, grows strong on all that bad blood.

My grandma was the first person to let me know I remind people of other people. I was six. I was at my grandma’s house and she called me into the kitchen. But she said Jasmine, my mom’s name. I stood there, kitchen island barely coming up to my chin. I stared up at her. She stared down at me. It took her so long to realize what she’d said. And that wasn’t the last time it happened, either. Still happens. On this visit I was sketching at the dining room table and she walked up behind me, wrapped an arm around my shoulders and said whatcha workin on, Jazz?

I’m pretty sure my grandma loves me. But I also think that some of that love she’s holding for me, wherever she’s keeping it, is meant for my mom. She can’t give it to her, won’t let herself. So she gives it to me. I hold it in my pockets, my bookbag, between the sheets in my sketchbook, in my socks, my shoes. But I take it all out on my mom’s front porch. Think it would hurt her too much if I came into the house with it.

My mom was the second. And she gave me a two for two, bless her heart.

I was nine. I was just playing in the backyard. Hadn’t met Nico yet. Kwame and Tyler were both visiting family out of state. I didn’t really like any of the other kids in the neighborhood enough to invite them over (sue me). I don’t know what the fuck I was doing. You know how boredom brews up inside a nine year old, makes them do the most mundane, ridiculous shit to tamp it down. I was running back and forth across our tiny backyard, trying to figure out how fast I could really go. Back. Forth. Back. Forth. Big palm tree. Propane tank. Big palm tree. Propane tank.

I tripped, and my knee fell hard against a sharp ass rock. I was mostly in shock then, but now that I think about it, I was bleeding pretty bad. Red blood ran under the grit and gravel on brown skin. Thought I looked a little like a National Geographic volcano, hot lava dribbling out of me, eating up all the trees on my expanse.

I didn’t cry and I didn’t yell or anything. I don’t think my mom would’ve found me outside if she hadn’t been walking past the patio door just as I fell. She ran out and fell to her knees, looked at my cut. She hugged me. When she pulled back to ask me how I felt, if I had any pain, her eyes were wet. I told her I was fine.

“Juanlu don’t lie to me.”

We stared at each other, hot lava between us. She bit her lip when she realized what she’d said, but she didn’t correct herself. Wonder what she thought would happen, if she went back and fixed it. So that’s how I figured out my dad’s name. Juanlu. Juan Luis.

When she came back outside with the hydrogen peroxide she gave me a look too big for me and her tears came harder. I think she was seeing my grandma, what they used to be. Maybe those times when my mom fell and busted her ass playing, and grandma came out with that brown bottle. When grandma used to run out and check up on her. I wonder if grandma was serious with it, face folded up with worry. I wonder if she tried to make my mom laugh.

I think when she looked at me that day on the ground in our backyard, the past cut her up. Carved her into pieces it took for itself. Left her raw and open, blood splattered all over the present. The life that came first, with my grandma. The one that came after, with my dad. But God I think too much. Nico’s right.

“You gotta stop that shit babe,” he’s always telling me. “Your face screams ‘come fuck with me.’”

I love my mom and I love my grandma, but they take pieces of me for themselves, reach through me and around me and across me towards each other.

Nico doesn’t divide me like that. He keeps me whole when he looks at me, talks to me. I can only ever remind him of me, I think. I mean, how many people has he pulled out of a polluted Florida waterway?

And like a goddamn prophet, that shit Nico’s always telling me about how I look way too off my guard when I’m walking through the street? Comes to pass. His warnings find footing.

I’m passing by the bus stop. Street’s empty. The cars running past on the street make the only noise for miles. Makes sense. Sundays are always quiet like this, slow. We have way too many churches down here for us not to respect god at least a little. And in a place where nobody can ever keep still for too long, silence is the highest praise.

Out of the corner of my eye I see some kid in a blue plaid sweatshirt texting on his phone, standing under the bus stop lamps, that white light caked in blue. Another kid’s sitting on the hard plastic bench, headphones in, head down.

The thing about reminding people of other people is that it’s a complete shot in the dark. I’ve gotten quick smiles at the Publix, right before the lady with the sew-in wig realizes I’m not her son. Soft casual where were you?s at the Steak-n-Shake from pretty girls who register I’m not their boyfriend only after a few blinks. But I’ve also gotten tight lips and raised brows from cashiers at the Wingstop (I like their ranch better than Wing on Fire’s) who realize I’m not their ex or the guy that cut them off while they were getting off the I or that dude who walked into class without holding the door for them only after they really look at my face.

I’m almost past the bus stop when the kid in the plaid walks up to me, ditches my periphery for my direct field of vision. I’m just starting to think you want the shoes, right? when he punches me in the face.

I’m gonna spare you the poetry. Getting punched in the face isn’t like anything else in this entire fucking world. Newton’s bitch ass says that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Every hit gets a hit back. But damn if it isn’t the shittiest thing in the world when that’s the only thing I can hope for, that my face fractures Blue Plaid’s knuckles a little bit.

I’m laying down on my back on the sidewalk now, staring up at the world’s ceiling getting dark. I move to get up. Somebody kicks me in the ribs, evicts the breath from my chest. Try to curl up on my side and what’s that shit Nico’s always telling me about getting jumped? Protect the head. I move to cover my head with my arms but somebody jerks me to my feet. Somebody pulled back and kicked the world as hard as they could—that’s why it’s spinning like this. Someone’s holding my arms pinned behind my back. Must be Blue Plaid, because Headphones is standing in front of me now, looking at me with an anger that sears my throat raw. He hits me in the stomach and I wanna double over, fold in half, but I can’t.

“You hard now, motherfucker?! Huh?!” Headphones is asking me, voice all warbly like it’s coming through water.

And all I can think right now is who do you see who do you see who the fuck do you see. I try to say something but Headphones hits me again and I don’t get the chance. I try harder.

“Mother… fucker, I’m not… I’m not…” I push my words through the empty space that cuts through the forest of pain growing inside me. Between the branches behind my face. Between the leaves in my chest.

And I see it, clear as anything. When Headphones realizes I’m not whoever the fuck he wanted. He looks at me, eyes wide, anger gone. And he says,

“Oh shit. Ooooh shit. P, it’s not him!”

Blue Plaid drops me. I land on my front, break my fall with my arm. When I look up they’re running into the sun. Good. I hope it eats them the fuck up.

I don’t know how long I’m laying there. Street’s still empty and I’m thinking of course this shit had to happen on the quietest Sunday in Miami history. I’m trying to take inventory. Face? Right cheek hurts like hell, pain in the dairy section, right next to the yogurt. Ribs? Hurt less, ache with the produce, between the tomatoes. Think Blue Plaid’s shoe had a soft toe. Think they were Champions or something. Stomach? Hurts less than the cheek but more than the ribs, pang with the cereal but not the good shit. No Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Cocoa Puffs or Cookie Crisps. It’s with the muesli, the plain oats, the unsweetened Cheerios.

I roll over to my side, the one with the uninjured ribs, and I cough. When I look down at the concrete I’m relieved to find that there’s no blood. A good sign. My arms feel a little strained from Blue Plaid holding them so tight behind my back, but they’re okay I think. I use them to brace myself, and I get up.

I limp over to the bus stop bench, sit down heavier than I intended to and pay for it with my ribs telling me to fuck off. I wince as I pull out my phone, go to call my mom. I pause over her name, her contact picture where she’s smiling big in front of the Dolphin Mall, browner with the summer. I’m in it too. Her arms are tight around me. I’m smiling softer but fuck, I look so fucking happy. I think about limping home, coming into the house with a huge bruise on my face while she’s getting ready to go to work. I know what she would see. Her baby got jumped her mom got jumped the love of her damn life got jumped on the street while he she he was walking home. I breathe deep, and the breath sidles up to my bruised ribs, swats at them on its way out my chest.

I lock my phone and slip it into my pocket. I get up. The neon lights of the beauty supply store are shining back at me. I can see the start of the chain-link fence right behind the building, even from the bus stop. I put up the hood of my jacket and walk the other way.

Nico lives right next to the Dollar General on 65th, in the neighborhood with the water tower. It sounds stupid but when I was little I thought that was the coolest shit ever. Growing up down here, one of the first things you learn is that the tap water’s probably gonna give you nerve damage (not saying that it will , just saying that it might ). Thought it was the coolest thing ever that Nico lived right under something we needed so bad.

It scared me shitless when I figured out I looked like myself to him. It made me want to run into a Publix and dance down the aisles but it also scared me shitless. I was ten and I felt naked, like he could see everything. God.

We were sitting on the floor in his room, playing GTA San Andreas. He looked over at me, head tilted to the side a little, and said,

“You have a bunch of dots on your face. So does my mami, but she calls them beauty marks. But we’re boys, so what do we call them?”

I didn’t want to look him in the eye then. I wanted to look at the TV screen, where CJ was paused in the middle of throwing somebody out of an El Dorado. But it felt like Nico’s eyes would be wherever I looked, so I shrugged and joked,

“Do they make me ugly?”

Nico shook his head, all serious, and the air around me got so tight that I had to unpause GTA with my controller, to turn it back into something I could breathe.

When I get to his house the driveway’s empty. His parents must be at work. Luz is probably at her boyfriend’s. Abril might be at a sleepover.

I climb the steps of his porch with some difficulty, ignore the doorbell, knock hard right on the door. His front door’s got that frosted glass that looks good but doesn’t actually let you see shit. Wonder what I’d look like to him right now, hazy body mixed up with the indistinct light of the streetlamps. He takes too long to answer. I knock again. I hear footsteps now, and the door opens so fast it makes me dizzy.

“Dude why the fuck are you knocking on my door like you pay this damn mortgage—”

I look up and he stops talking.

“Holy shit.” He steps aside. “What the fuck are you doing out here? Come inside.”

I move to come inside, but my foot catches on the threshold and I trip. Nico catches me, wraps my arm around his neck and helps me to the living room.

I stare at the dark screen of the turned off TV. The house is quiet. Nico’s moving around the kitchen. I hear the freezer door slam, and a few moments later he’s back, handing an ice pack to me before he sits down in the armchair to my right. I hold the pack to my cheek and feel instant relief run through me.

“What the fuck happened?” he asked, the calmest I’ve ever heard him.

I look up. His voice worries me. That calm’s hard and hot, like iron left to smolder. That harshness like searing burning broken glass, that ferocity that tells me someone’s gonna get fucked up no matter what I say. And in moments like these the truth and the lie have the same damn face so why bother.

"Got jumped. They thought I was somebody else.”

I see his fists clench in the light coming in from the kitchen. “Hijo de puta.”

I hold the ice pack tighter against my face.

“Where?”

“The bus stop in front of the Family Dollar.”

“Who?”

“Probably some South Beach kids. I’ve never seen them around here before.”

“And you won’t see them around here again.”

“Nico…”

“Fucking comemierdas think they can just run around here and fuck up whoever or whatever the fuck they—”

“Nico…”

“—I mean are they fucking kidding? You see somebody on the street and you just—”

“Nico…”

“But it’s not gonna be no two-bit mistaken identity Face-Off Nicholas Cage bullshit when we—”

“Nico, can I stay here tonight?”

He calms down when he looks up at me, for real this time. I wrap his anger up in a gentleness I thought somebody kicked out of me at a bus stop in front of a Family Dollar. I give that anger nowhere to go. And he says,

“Yes.”

My mom should just be clocking in right now. I text her from Nico’s bathroom, tell her where I am. I look at myself in the mirror. I want to see just how bad shit is.

And it’s… pretty bad, but I’d say that for getting hit super hard in the face with a closed fist… maybe not as bad as it could be.

A bruise grows from the corner of my left eye to the brown shore a few miles right below my left cheekbone, its own little continent. It’s a pretty deep purple and it’s gonna get worse before it gets better but I think I might be able to work something out with Luz, get her to let me borrow some of her concealer. I can Youtube it before I get home if her generosity ends with just lending me the concealer, figure out how the fuck to use it.

Nico’s standing in the hallway when I get out of the bathroom, waiting for me.

“If you want, you can sleep in Abril’s room, in a bed. She’s at Sloan’s.”

I want to sleep in Nico’s room, in his bed, but it happened again. Somebody turned me into someone else, and I got my ass beat for it. I feel loose, unmoored, like I got sent back to that blank space we’re in before God calls us in. Before we’re anything.

“Abril’s room sounds good. I’m starting to like pastels.”

The smile that Nico tries to give me loses its way to his eyes. He runs a hand through his hair, like he was gonna try to touch me but I burn too hot. He never knows what to do when I get like this. He described it to me once. Said it’s like taking a tire iron to plexiglass.

I try to fall asleep, I really do. Roll around in Abril’s princess twin as much as my ribs and my stomach will let me. But trying to sleep with fresh injuries has to be the ninth circle of hell. That’s what Satan decides you have to do for the rest of forever, when you get down there.

Whenever I get close to something like sleep the ache in my stomach or my chest or my face yanks me back, slaps me awake to the dark that’s sitting like a slab of concrete on my chest right now and fuck maybe I was wrong maybe my ribs are broken and the shards caught a lung and that’s why I can’t breathe right now I can’t breathe I can’t breathe I can’t breathe—

I sit up. A tabby kitten on the giant poster opposite the bed stares back at me with huge marble eyes. I leave the room.

My ribs still hurt like hell, face still sore as shit. But I came here cause I breathe the best with him, right? Damn if it doesn’t sit on my chest, knowing that neither my mom nor my grandma really knows how to give me a life that’s just my own. One that I don’t have to share with all the people waiting out inside their pasts. I don’t want to have to carry breaths that aren’t my own.

Through the windows in the hallway I can see the driveway. I don’t know what time it is but it must still be pretty early. No one’s home yet.

I push open the door to Nico’s room, and I can hear him snoring quietly. He’s facing the door, mouth wide open, curls wrapping around his face like dark vines. I walk over and nudge his shoulder. Nico’s always been a light sleeper and he wakes up immediately, eyes misty with sleep.

“Asaad?” he croaks, “you good?”

He always says something like this before we start, no matter how many times we do it. No matter where it happens.

I don’t say anything. I nod but I don’t think he sees it. I don’t know, maybe he does. Either way, I answer: I pull back his sheets and climb on top of him, my knees up against his waist, the length of my calves up against his hips.

He’s shirtless. I put my hands on his chest, palms prickling with the feeling of his heart beating steady inside him. He’s fully awake now but his face still has that muted sleepy calm that only ever comes out at night. He’s holding my hips now. The moon swings through the window to interrupt the dark around us and for a second it looks like my hands and his chest are a single thing. Like I dipped my hands into a pool the same color as me, like my fingers grew a chest, like they painted us conjoined, a Wynwood vista. And it’s here, on top of him, that I start having a really shitty thought. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe I don’t actually have my own face for him. Anyone, Nico would’ve pulled anyone from that canal—

But I don’t know how to ask him about something like that so I don’t. I take off my hoodie and we make the softest purple.