The Son of Every Man

Chapter 4.3

Miguel fled the rooftop, descending rapidly through the glass residential tower. He didn't look back, and could later form no mental image of Daniel's lone form shrinking behind him. He would instead imagine his old love disintegrating to dust (like any proper figment would), the wind carrying him away in an inscrutable cloud, high over the city's crowded web of lights.

His watch read nearly eight o'clock. His father would be home by now; they had probably just missed each other when Miguel ran from the house an hour before. Dread filtered thick through him like black tar. Somehow he had been so sure he could confide in his mother. She would be partially destroyed...but she would not share his terrible secret. Now he could see that it had been a tragic misjudgment on his part. Miguel was sure his father had already been told.

He unlocked the front door, stepped through, relocked it behind him. There was a kink in the scarlet and gold runner paving the hallway to the kitchen. He heard their voices murmur from within, then stop abruptly. His father stepped quietly into the far end of the hall. He pointed up. Miguel turned and began trudging up the stairs to his room. He was no longer heavy with dread. He weighed nothing. He was numb. In the last hour, his life had turned completely unrecognizable.

He was aware on some level that his father followed—those thumping, heavy steps shaking the stairwell were not his own. Miguel almost believed that he would continue rising once the stairs ended, like a ghost, up through the ceiling, attic, clay tiles of the roof, and into the night. But It didn't happen that way.

He entered his room, felt the heat from his father's body directly behind him. The door slammed shut and the mirror above his dresser clattered against the wall.

"Turn around, Miguel."

He did so, eyes now level with the weary brown of his father's. A stillness overtook the room.

"There is a point at which your mother and I have done all that is required. We've kept up our end of the bargain, and much, much more."

"You have," said Miguel. "I know."

"This is not our doing."

"Of course it's not."

"You are given choices in this life, Miguel. They are there to test your accountability...to God, to us, to yourself. They are very clear choices. You are smart, and you know how to choose correctly. We've given you all the tools you need. Yet you have chosen wrong. Please, Miguel, tell me why you have done this." His voice shrank as he leaned in slightly toward his son. "You have had so long to correct it."

"Many things are choices," said Miguel. He hated that his voice trembled so much. "But this isn't like that. I am this way. It wasn't ever about choosing."

"Yes it was. Yes it is. It's always a choice."

"Fine, then I choose this. I like who I am. I'm glad I turned out this way."

"Take that back, Miguel. Right now."

Miguel hung his head. He cried openly. "I'll never take it back. Never." He looked up, straight into his father's eyes. "And how dare you ask me to? How dare you make me feel guilty for so long, for something that isn't my fault?"

The bishop struck him across the face. "You may not speak to me that way."

He stood his ground. "What you just did...it's a bad thing." It was a revelation to Miguel only as the words came out.

The man balled his right hand into a fist and struck his son again: a direct hit below Miguel's left eye, sending him immediately to the floor. "That is not from me," he said solemnly. "That is through me." (But Miguel heard a sudden change in his father's voice. There was confusion and shock in it, at what he had just done. It had been years.)

"You're wrong," Miguel protested, scrambling back to his feet, tasting his own tears at the corners of his mouth. "It's only you. You did that to me with your own hands."

"Get out," said his father. "I never want to see you again. I don't know why you were put here. You are a stranger and I want you to get out of this house."

Miguel knew that this meant the end. His eyes swept the room as he left, scooping up careful memories of his favorite belongings (Dark Side of the Moon poster, denim-upholstered banana chair, boombox, Singapore Airlines model 747-400, blurry photo of a small Miguel grinning with his sisters outside a red brick school in San Justo), all of which he predicted—accurately, it would later turn out—were to be lost forever. Time to run again.

He cascaded down the stairwell, and as he stepped into the front hall, he froze, feeling the heat of his mother's gaze at his back. He turned around. She was at the other end, twenty feet away, and even from such a distance Miguel could see that her eyes were red from crying. Her sadness and confusion hit him in a focused beam. She clutched a white tissue to her chest, then lifted her other hand in a weakened, silent farewell.

;-;

Miguel woke up early in the afternoon. He lay motionless for a moment with his eyes closed. The kid. He could hear no telltale sounds and guessed that Gabe must be gone, which had always been the most likely outcome, hadn't it? Of course it had. It was nothing to sneak out of this apartment; Miguel rarely even locked the door. If he opened his eyes and glanced to his left only to find an expanse of empty bed, it wouldn't surprise him at all. He wouldn't miss a fucking beat. Miguel became so resigned to Gabe's absence, so comfortable with being alone once again that he nearly jumped when he opened his eyes.

Slowly, he sat up. Two feet poked out from beneath the bottom end of the comforter, along with part of a surprisingly hairy leg. Miguel's eyes followed a vague trajectory up the stitching of the blanket to where the kid's naked upper body was exposed to a shaft of afternoon light, pouring in through a gap in the bedroom door. Such incredibly smooth skin. Every detail jumped out at him now. Gabe's pectorals were small but well-formed, nipples no bigger than dimes, dark. His collarbones were pronounced, like poles against the fabric of a tent.

Miguel crept as softly as he could to the bedroom door, whisked through, switched the thermostat to manual mode and turned on the air conditioning. He closed the blinds and cranked shut a small vent window near the floor. He dropped a Radiohead CD into the player and set the volume to low. He started the coffee maker.

After a few minutes, Miguel climbed back into bed. He tried to make his movements as delicate as possible, but Gabe stirred, and then his eyes opened.

"Oh, hi," he said with a look of discomfort and mild alarm.

"Hi," said Miguel.

Gabe rose quickly and fetched his clothes from the floor. He threw them on. It was obvious that he'd overslept. His intention was, had always been, to leave.

"Any chance I can talk you into a cup of coffee?"

"No," said Gabe. "I should be going."

"Are you in a hurry?"

"I should just be going, that's all."

"Fine."

"I've stayed long enough."

Miguel sighed. "Okay."

"Well, what? Are we supposed to just spend all of our time together now?"

Miguel paused. He gathered all the patience he could and said, "No. You can spend as much or as little time with me as you want."

"I'll let myself out," said Gabe. He maneuvered through the gap in the door. A second later he peeked back through. Miguel thought he could detect an apology in Gabe's eyes. "I'll see you tonight."

"Okay," said Miguel.

;-;