The first thing Miguel Alvarez does after taking the D-tabs is lean forward slightly to rest his forehead against Alonzo’s chest – which startles him for a moment, before he decides to find it cute. The second thing he does, however, is burst into tears very suddenly, like a dam breaking – floodwaters wiping out villages, women and children drowned in their beds. Less cute, Alonzo thinks.
Not the best first date you’ve ever been on.
On the other hand, it’s far from the worst – that distinction goes to the night he spent, back in his teenage crossdressing days, with a white man nearly 20 years his senior who kept referring to them going home together later as “having tacos for dinner” and laughing every time he said it, like it was the world’s greatest joke. After about 90 minutes of this, Alonzo had gone to the bar, ordered a tall glass of red wine, and upended it over the guy’s head. He’d barely avoided getting his teeth bashed in, and had to walk home from the club in the rain, and one of his heels had broken, and a cop had pulled up next to him to “give him a lift”, which actually meant “heavy petting that would have gone further – despite Alonzo repeatedly mentioning he was 15 – had not headlights appeared on the road ahead and the radio crackled to life calling for a response to a break-in a few streets along (if only one or the other had happened, he remains convinced, he would not have gotten away so easily)”. He knocked over a lamp sneaking in, which woke his father up, and it was the first time he’d been caught in drag, and his father had flung a bottle at his head, and the glass had shattered on impact with his face, and now he saw the world out of one eye.
So, a guy crying? Not great, but not that big of a deal.
Don’t worry about the fact that you’d be hard pressed to come up with a “best first date”. Maybe the time you and that other little queen whose name you never caught ditched your (boring, sweaty, old) dates to do coke and smash bottles by the river, except that doesn’t really count because she’d specifically rejected any possibility of romance on the grounds that you were “too girlish” for her taste, which had made fireworks go off in your head for reasons you refused to try to understand.
He absently reaches his left hand up to hold the back of Miguel’s head closer to him, and moves his right hand from where it previously rested over Miguel’s heart to pull him into a hug, consciously relaxing his body to counter the reflexive stiffening of his muscles at the touch. Thank god he had the foresight to change into a shirt he didn’t give a shit about before moving in – if it had been one of his suits or sweaters being smeared with tears and snot right now, he’d be feeling a lot less generous.
The sobs continue mercilessly. He leans forward slightly to rest his chin atop Miguel’s head, aimlessly stroking soft, close-cropped hair with the tips of his fingers. Thinking. He supposes he should try to say something comforting, but it doesn’t seem like it would help, and he doesn’t feel particularly inclined to do so anyways, so he just stands there, rocking back and forth ever so slightly. He listens to the sounds, hiccuping breaths and whimpering, staring out at the darkness beyond the pod until the body against him gradually relaxes, falls still and silent. Finally Miguel shoves him away, wipes his face and gets into his bunk without a glance, without a word.
“Party over, sugar?” Alonzo murmurs. No reply. He hadn’t really expected one. Just something to say.
He drums his lacquered fingernails against the empty glass in front of him. He thinks maybe he should feel guilty, but he doesn’t. None of this has anything to do with him.
It never does. You are a perpetual outsider. You don’t exist in any meaningful sense.
The tabs take about 30 minutes to start working, 45 at a push, so he has some time to kill before anything interesting happens – if it was even going to, after that unpromising start. He starts making his bed, putting away his things, occasionally glancing down at the lump on the bottom bunk. It remains motionless throughout.
He finishes, casts one last fruitless glance downwards, then climbs up and stretches out. Fishes the little iPod he smuggled in out of his pillowcase, pops in the headphones, and closes his eyes.
Two weeks in this shithole. 5 years and 50 more weeks left.
He hadn’t expected prison to be easy, per se – and to be honest, he hadn’t expected to go to prison at all. How was he supposed to know that degenerate lowlife had the connections she did? Dressed like that?
Angelo should have taken care of it. But, as of late, dear Angie had been less and less of a partner and more and more silent. “You’ll take care of me in here, though,” Alonzo had pressed, phone cord wrapped around his hand in the visiting room, hating the harsh lighting, knowing it made him look washed out.
Angelo had looked tired. “I’ll try, Lonnie. But I’m not a miracle worker. You have to remember that.”
Close enough, as far as Alonzo was concerned. The D-tabs had rolled in without a hitch, and Chucky had agreed to his terms without much resistance. “I don’t intend to be so silent,” he’d promised, and Alonzo had had to repress a smile. How macho. It’s okay, baby, you can be the big man in front of your little flunkies. Just remember who’s really in charge.
He barely hears the words over the music, much less comprehends them. Plucks one earbud out. “Yes, darling?”
“What you said earlier. Is that for real?”
Alonzo pinches the wire, swings it back and forth, hitting the earbud against his lips. “Gonna have to be more specific than that, baby.”
“The virgin thing.” Miguel’s raspy voice is quiet, hesitant. “You really ain’t had sex? Ever?”
Alonzo smiles into the darkness. And the game begins.
“Hard to believe, I know.” He rolls over, leans over the bunk to look down at Miguel, who pointedly avoids looking back at him. “But it’s true.”
True enough.
“Why?”
He pauses for a moment. There are a lot of answers to this question that he’s accumulated over the years – usually he runs down the list and picks whichever one is most likely to annoy the person asking. This time, though, he decides to go with one of the more truthful responses. “I never fell in love.”
A snort.
He waits.
Nothing.
“Something funny?” he prods.
“Yeah.”
“Care to share?”
“What the hell does love have to do with it?”
Alonzo gasps in mock horror. “Migueeeel. Where’s your sense of romance?” Leaning over the bed is getting uncomfortable, so he swings his legs over and leaps down, settling cross-legged on the floor near Miguel’s bunk. In response, Miguel shifts himself further away, and Alonzo resists the urge to roll his eyes.
Always that fear, that disgust, no matter what you do. You repulse. You’re unnatural. You're a threat.
You can cry about it, or you can play along.
“Should have figured you were a heartbreaker,” he continues smoothly. “Pretty boy like you.” He reaches his hand out towards the bed, aiming for another flinch.
Instead, Miguel catches it, and holds it. He finally turns to lock eyes with Alonzo, who suddenly feels like a prey animal staring down a rifle.
“I had romance,” he responds. “It didn’t mean shit.”
And he drops Alonzo’s hand, and rolls over to face the other side of the pod.