The following work contains a homophobic slur and domestic violence. I acknowledge that this might be traumatic for some people to read; please be cautious in reading this, or do not read on.
The door closes swiftly behind Alberto.
The judge and executioner focus on me.
It’s the silence before the first slap, when you have no idea how hard this will be nor how many you will have to withstand, only the knowledge that it is going to hurt.
And then it comes.
The executioner – my father – storms up to me, “Why were you kissing him, Joaquin?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking ab-about.” I attempt to mock the executioner’s biting tone, but his disgust rattles me, and I stumble over the last word. My fists are clenched at my side to resist pushing him away, and to hide their insistent shaking.
The executioner’s voice is brusque, “Stop being an insolent child and answer me. What made you kiss him? Did he force you? Did you want to disappoint your family? Embarrass me? Enlighten us.”
I look up to that hard-lined face, etched into an expression of disgust, with the smile I know ignites his anger. I would do anything to remove that look from his face. “He didn’t force me. I wanted to do it. I didn’t do it for anyone else’s pleasure, least of all your family.”
A muscle jumps in my executioner’s jaw, “Watch your tongue.”
“That’s Alberto’s job.”
One moment, I’m looking up to him, and the next the executioner’s hands have the front of my shirt in his grip. The dark, bruised skin below his eyes and the snarl set on his mouth reminds me of the monsters I used imagine lurked in the shadows of our house. My knees start to shake when I realise the monster has gotten brave enough to play. “Excuse me?”
I understand now that my life is, quite literally, in his hands, and I keep my mouth shut.
“We did not raise a faggot, and we won’t raise a faggot.” He ends that word sharply, spittle landing on my face. I resist the urge to flinch. “So, if I were you, I would shut that mouth and remember yourself, and pray very hard that this affliction can be reversed.”
The executioner shoves me backwards over the coffee table. Glass shatters as my arm knocks the table.
“Your mother and I are going to talk to the priest.” He is not looking at me, as if to give me privacy to get up. I do. “While we are gone, you can think about whether you’re prepared to maintain this immature behaviour. I have had endless patience with you, but I refuse to continue being disobeyed and embarrassed, because you don’t have an ounce of decency in you.”
The words hidden in the silence dawn on me. “You’re going to kick me out?”
“Only if you force me to.”
I think about it now, my back bruised and the air thick with the reality of this situation.
Did I do it to hurt them?
For a second, I hoped that I did, because that would mean this could be solved and I could stay. But then I thought of Alberto when we were caught: shoulders drooping and hands shaking, but his eyes never wavering from mine as my father told him to leave, checking to see if I wanted him to leave. And I saw he would have stayed if I had asked him to.
And then maybe I wouldn’t be standing alone with fresh bruises lining my back.
“Adonis will be here in a minute.” The judge chirps from behind the executioner.
“Adonis?” My voice breaks. “Really? Do I need to have him here?”
“Your brother has never disappointed us–”
“He’s perfect,” I say mockingly.
The executioner strikes my face. My ear rings as he speaks, “And he is the perfect example of the man you should be growing into. Perhaps instead of arguing with him, you can learn from him.”
“I’ll make sure to get out my note pad.”
The executioner’s lips thin into two straight lines, but he doesn’t raise his hand again.
Knock-knock-knock.
The executioner’s doting smile, the one he reserves for his eldest son, is already forming as he turns to the door. He straightens his shirt and fixes his hair, transforming from executioner to father. Adonis greets him with a firm handshake and gives our judge-turned-mother a kiss on the cheek. My mother speaks hushed, rushed Spanish to him, and with two resentful looks over their shoulders, his parents leave without another word to me.
“Joaquin, how are–”
I turn and run up the steps to my room, not prepared to listen to a lecture from my older brother about kissing a boy. If I had been normal, maybe we could talk about my first kiss with a pretty girl from down the street, and even if my parents had heard about it, they’d just shake their heads with smiles on their faces.
My feet thunder down the dark hallway and I can hear Adonis’s footsteps not far behind. I rush into my room and sink onto my bed and let him come to me on my battlefield.
“I’m just trying to help! Let me in.” Adonis’ hand only grazes my shoulder before I push it off and sit up.
“Don’t. Touch. Me.”
“Why don’t you let me help you? You used to tell me everything, and you didn’t even mention that you... Why?” Adonis frowned and his brow creased. His pity, his worry, his frustration makes me feel microscopic under his eyes. I am not small, not after everything I have had to deal with in this family. The anger I have drowned out for so long hauls itself to the surface and the bitter words claw their way up.
“BECAUSE NO ONE IS BETTER THAN YOU IN THEIR EYES!” The anger pushes me off my bed and next thing I know, I’m pushing Adonis backwards, out out out of my room.
“That’s not true–” he starts, but I can see even he is unconvinced. He swallows his words before I slam the squeaky door in his face. I go to lock it, but I can’t. Papi took my key. Surprisingly, Adonis doesn’t try for the door.
“I don’t want your help,” I snarl at the white-washed door, picturing his neat beard, his crisp shirt, his shiny shoes, his perfect, white smile. “It was my mistake. Some of us make them.”
“Was it a mistake?”
No.
“Yes.”
“Kissing Alberto? Or that you were caught?” He sounds too amused for someone who’s arguing with me through a door.
“It’s the same thing.”
Most of his soft laugh gets lost through the door, but his words echo just slightly in the bare hallway, “No, it’s not. It’s like when we were small and we were caught eating the chocolate mami thought she could hide at the back of the cupboard. We weren’t sad because we ate the chocolate. We were sad because we weren’t smart enough to wash our faces before she came into the kitchen.”
Which was it? Did kissing Alberto feel wrong? I want to say it did, I want to believe it was, so that I could put this behind me. But, when his hands were on my waist, his lips on my neck and his voice raspy in my ears, I have never felt more alive. I have never felt more seen. Around him, I was unapologetically alive.
Adonis’ rueful voice through the door draws me from my thoughts.
“I would never be able to go against our parents like you did. It’s not in me. I’m their eldest.” An empty chuckle. “They just push and push and push, and don’t understand the word “No” when it comes out of my mouth. But you, you make them mad all the time and they love you for it anyway. And they will love you anyway. After their anger fades.” He pauses. “I’m not really sure they would love me if I did what you did. No one is better than you at making them think about things. It drives me crazy most days.”
I open the door to my brother’s face, a dejected look on his face as he meets my eyes.
“But, you’re my brother. No matter what.”
And it’s like my brother shrinks in front of my eyes. He transforms from Adonis, my golden, older brother, the favourite son, the perfect man I should be someday. And he becomes Adonis, the boy who got caught eating chocolate, the boy who has his own insecurities. The boy who is real.
He looks like my brother.
“Is being...” I look to the scarred floor between us, scared of facing the last of my family who hasn’t shunned me, “you know, a part of no matter what?”
He set his hands on my shoulders and says, “Joaquin.” I haven’t felt that reassuring weight on my shoulders for years, and the clean, crisp smell of his aftershave reminds me of papi. I prepare myself for papi’s hard, dark eyes, but instead I meet my brother’s soft, deep eyes. It’s funny how brown eyes, a common colour, can hold so much meaning just because of the soul behind them.
The anger that had curled itself around my heart begins to melt when his voice, that sounds so much like our father’s, says with certainty, “No matter what.”