Tiffany Scandal - Jigsaw Youth

At sunset, they lit lanterns.

We sat on plastic lawn chairs and watched the party around us.

Paige leaned in. “I love you.”

I was about to get us more to drink, when she told me she to stay, she’d get it.

I heard a familiar voice behind me. “She’s pretty.”

“Abuelita?” I stood.

“Mija,” she spread her arms to give me a hug.

I cried and told her that I was afraid I’d lost her.

She told me not to be stupid, I was family.

When the music slowed and there were less and less people, my grandmother showed us where we’d be sleeping. They had pulled out the sofa bed and set two pillows and a blanket for us to share. Paige poked my arm. She seemed stoked my family accepted us.

“So. . which one of you is the guy?”

“Don’t be a jerk,” said my grandmother, pouring more coffee in everyone’s cups. The table was a spread of leftovers, and we’d been talking about the party, and hangovers.

“ Que? I’m asking because they’re both pretty,” my aunt replied. “I thought lesbianas dated women that looked like men. . I just don’t want to be ignorant.”

My grandmother set down the coffee pot. “I don’t want to hear about any of you having sex. You’re all still babies, in my eyes.”

“Do you have questions, abuelita ?”

She stared at her plate. My aunts and uncles chewed their food, watching us.

“Who cooks and cleans?”

“We both clean, but Paige does most of the cooking.”

“Thank god,” said Uncle Tito. “I still remember the time you almost burned down the house just trying to make Cup-O-Noodles!”

“And who works?”

“We both do. We split the bills down the middle.”

My grandmother was quiet.

My aunt said, “Mama, are you jealous yet?”

My grandmother pointed to my grandfather, and in English said, “Maybe I wish you were a women, so it would be much easier around the house.”

Everyone laughed. My grandfather shrugged, smiling.

After breakfast, Paige and I carried our things out to the car. My family members had brought us bags of fruit — avocados, lemons, oranges, figs, etc.

Paige said, “This was a lot of fun.”

“Yeah.”

Across the street, a familiar-looking woman was walking with her kids.

“Look it’s Mensa’s sister.” My grandmother waved to her. “It’s sad what happened to Mensa.”

“Wait. What happened to Mensa?” I hadn’t heard from her since we were in school.

My aunt said, “You never heard?”

The mood collapsed. I knew what they were about to say, because it was the worst thing I could imagine.

“She passed away.”

It still hurt to hear it. “How?”

“They said it was accidental,” said my grandmother. “But we think it was intentional.”

Paige took my hand. I said, “Like suicide?”

“Everyone knew she had problems.”

I remembered the jackets she always wore to hide her scars.

Problems was a way a proud family might refer to depression.

I went to Mensa’s sister and hugged her, and said it was good to see her. She waved to my family and looked back at me like she was remembering.

“I just heard about Mensa.”

Vero started to cry, but she was also smiling. “My sister loved you very much.”

“She was my best friend.” I was crying, too.

I asked Paige if we could listen to Nirvana on the drive home.

“I haven’t heard them in forever,” she said.

“Me either.”

“I probably still remember the words to most of it.”

“It was our favorite band when we were kids. Mensa and I, I mean.”

Paige flipped through the binder and found my beat-up Nevermind CD, one of the first albums I’d ever bought. She put it in and turned up the volume, and we started to sing.

I started to think about how difficult it’d been for Paige and I to come out to our families. I thought about the way Mensa and I were when we were kids, and wondered if she had loved me the same way, and hadn’t known how to deal with it. Probably she hadn’t.

I wondered what her last moments were like.

If I could have helped somehow, if talking can really help these things.

But maybe she was better this way. Free .

I tried to picture her sleeping in a cloud, listening to what we were listening to.

But it was hard to picture her in a way that was actually still her.

I quit the diner after I caught the owner jerking off into a bowl of pancake batter. He’d had a photo of a cheerleader leaned against the counter. I still had some money left, from the short tour we’d done along the west coast. He hadn’t seen me yet, so I took a picture with my cell phone, and the shutter sound scared the shit out of him, and he started screaming.

That night, I printed out the photo on my computer, and cut-n-pasted together a flier. The picture was grainy as hell, but you could tell it was the kitchen of the restaurant, because you could see into it from the dining area. The flier read, “NOW SERVING NON-GMO (MAYBE?) SEMEN IN YOUR BREAKFAST.” I went to Kinko’s and made more copies, and went back to the diner to put them up all over the block.

I felt better.

I expected he might call the cops when he saw it, but they never came.

Several months later, the diner shut down for good.

Good riddance.

JFK

I peel myself off your sheets and shuffle my way to the bathroom. I fumble with the switch and notice the roaches rush back into the shadows. Pebbles of cat litter on the floor sticking to the bottoms of my feet. I piss loudly and hope you don’t hear the air that snuck out of my ass. I study the bathroom walls, and find myself thinking they used to be a different shade of green.

I trip over the clothes on the floor on the way back to bed. You stir, extending your arm to welcome me back. We’re like this for weeks, stuck.

We’re drinking coffee and listening to traffic.

I stare back because I’m not afraid.

You mouth “I love you” and it breaks me.

But I’ve got to get home.

And suddenly it feels like everything else is breaking.

A suitcase is a heavy heart.

You kiss me on the forehead and say you won’t tell me goodbye.

Please don’t ever tell me goodbye.

BOS

A winter colder than anything I’ve ever experienced.

I get my own private tour: “That’s where a group of guys ganged up and beat the shit out of me. . that’s where I slipped and cracked my skull open. . that’s where I was locked out and unsure if I’d survive the night. .”

These were parts of Boston you were made to feel less than a person.

I felt closer to you, here.

Back at the hotel, I tried to read a book I’d brought.

You were staring at the bed, entranced.

Like I wasn’t there when the impulse struck.

Your brain was always working.

No matter how far you were from the desk, you were always working.

And that was fine.

Every moment with you was the happiest I was.

Even if those moments only happened a few times a year.

ATL

Now it’s summer and I feel like a secret. We don’t kiss in public, because there are cameras. I know this is part of the work. But it makes you angry when we’re caught. We hide in the room. Watch Twin Peaks and play footsies on the bed. I dance in my underwear, swaying my hips from side to side, to music that’s only in my head. The air-conditioner clicks on, humming quietly along.