Rafael Yglesias - Hide Fox, and All After

“Alec,” Raul yelled, “they want their guilt back.”

“Here it is,” Alec said, throwing it to Raul.

Raul leaned over the wall, saying to them, “Here — listen to this, Alec, it’s a terrible cliché—you can have your guilt. We want no more of it.”

“My life may seem suddenly calm,” Raul wrote in his notes, “but it remains a mess. My lies to my parents are beginning to strain under repetition and consequent lack of credibility. Hell, that was a sentence. As for Barbara, her presence in my life is annoying. Something draws me to her; I cannot make a clean break. I still hope for a loss of my virginity. But things worked out well with Alec, and I am quite happy, strangely enough. It’s just that it all seems to be the calm before the storm.”

He stayed in his room at the back of the apartment like a cowed animal. At night he prowled about it, a caged panther.

His life had been seriously invaded; he tried now to recapture the order of his inner life. Months ago, as part of a long argument with his family, Raul had established the rule that no one entered his room without knocking. A while after that, he put on a latch, never failing to lock the door behind him. Without the door closed, it was as if a gaping wound had been left unhealed; without it locked, the wound was in danger of reopening.

Raul’s own sense of power was all-important to him. Without his fortress secure, he retired, deep in his chair, frightened and exhausted. No joy surpassed the locking of that door after dinner; the playing of the radio in the subdued room, his voice climbing the blank walls.

This was no adolescent phase, though it bore resemblance to one. Wherever he went, with or without his parents, this was true. If he had to resort to the bathroom for peace, he would do so. The demand for privacy excluded demanding it, though he did once with his parents, for that alone would breach it.

His mania, therefore, was never taken seriously. His parents were hurt by it, particularly his father — for what secrets could he have from him? His brother was equally surprised by it, and rather than believe Raul wished to be alone — or away from them — they put it down to silly resentment. It would pass. All they had to do was draw him out. There were constant expeditions in there for that purpose, Raul marking each one with hate.

Jose Sabas, Raul’s brother, was in his final year at Columbia University. It was a momentous year for him because of the Columbia uprising; and his intense political activity made any visit of his to the Sabas home an event. His news was always astonishing and his skill in the telling provided a willing audience. Though Raul couldn’t bear his brother’s mere presence, he still looked forward to his visits. But when Raul found the company of adults too awful to tolerate, he retired to his room, and often his lumbering warmhearted brother followed him there. Jose would act as if the latch on Raul’s door were non-existent, jamming it violently. “Come on, man. Open up.”

“Okay, wait a second.” Raul would remove the now twisted latch. Jose entered the room in big strides, Raul closed and locked the door.

“So what’re ya doin’?”

Raul liked to be tight-lipped with his brother. He just shrugged his shoulders.

“I see you’re reading Bleak House. It’s a great one of his.”

Raul nodded.

Jose took out a cigarette. “So what’s the story with you and school?”

“Could you give me a Camel?” Jose handed him one. “I don’t know. Uh, I’m goin’ to school.”

“Yeah, but can you see staying with it, or what?”

“What difference does it make?”

“Come on, man, it makes a lot of difference. Like the money. Like what you wanna do. It’s your life, man.”

“I don’t know whether it’s my life or not. I mean…That’s stupid, I don’t see Cabot as my life.”

“Well,” Jose hesitated. “What does that mean?”

“I don’t know what it means. Exactly what I said — Cabot isn’t my life.”

“That just seems unreal to me.”

“Okay.”

“No, I mean, when I was in high school, all my friends were there, you know, and the tests and that kinda mindset you get into about grades. I mean I didn’t think of myself in those terms. I was a poet, a playwright.” Jose smiled ironically. “And I couldn’t fuckin’ stand the bullshit the teachers and the administration would go in for. There were times I just said — fuck the school, you know. I didn’t think, like that was my life. But, ultimately, it was. Couldn’t get away from that. What else were you gonna do? You know, living with your parents. With Columbia, it’s different ’cause you don’t have that dependency, you can’t be defined by it. At least you can’t let them.”

“And why the fuck should I let them now?”

“Let what? What do you mean?”

“Look, just ’cause you’re in college and I’m in high school doesn’t mean I should let them define me.”

“I wasn’t saying that at all. You shouldn’t let them define you. I just meant it was a different situation. You’re trapped in the situation, and you’re just forced to find some way of dealing with it.”

“Fuck that. You think you’re saying something revolutionary to me? You’re just saying, it’s too bad, but stick it out. Keep a stiff upper lip.”

“Come on, don’t be stupid. I wasn’t trying to say anything revolutionary to you.…”

Raul jumped up, holding his arms tightly at his sides, yelling at the center of the floor. “I mean who the hell do you think you are? Walking in here discussing my life as if you own it. Get outta here with your fucking stupid platitudes.”

“Will you stop acting so crazy?”

“Crazy!” Raul screamed.

“Man, I can’t relate to this.…”

“Crazy! You shit! You…”

“Fuck this, man. You’re just bein’ silly.” Jerking his arms, Jose left.

Nearly all the adults about him elected themselves his advisers. The constant flow of belated clichés, of fatherly tones, or brotherly tones, annoyed him beyond endurance. He spent the majority of his day at school listening to the varied experiences of concerned educators’ fourteen-year- old days. And with this disingenuous advice becoming popular at home, he was all the more without peace. The retirement to his room used to be a relaxation into sanity, as he privately worked out the violences others exhibit in life, but now it was becoming a scramble to escape.

Barbara called him several times, asking him to call back. He did not.

He and Alec were on different schedules, so they saw little of each other. But Alec was also avoiding him slightly. Raul knew why but blocked the thought out — he would not learn to hate Alec.

He was dealing with three different planets: his parents, the school, and Barbara and Alec. He prayed that somewhere between the squeeze of those worlds he could find that solemn Raul who watched life swirl beneath him.

Iolanthe’s opening night came. Since Barbara would be there, Raul would have to avoid going, but he arranged to meet Alec afterward at Richard’s house. He got to Richard’s half an hour before Iolanthe was scheduled to finish. Richard and a friend of his were there alone; Richard, evidently, was having a fight with Stephie. Raul, however, wouldn’t let Richard’s harassed and bedraggled manner delay smoking the grass. Richard fussed about, checking that doors were locked and that no one was coming, before they went to the terrace to smoke.

Raul felt uncomfortable enough, socializing without Alec, without Richard’s and Barry’s childishness. For God’s sake, they were four years older than he, yet they were acting as if the grass were a six-pack of beer.