From the Depths of My Mind

1. Above Water: A Short Story

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Twenty-five ceiling tiles. That's how long Pablo Mendoza screamed at his wife Tatiana. And that's how long she screamed back.

Adam Mendoza lay on his single bed and counted the tiles on his bedroom ceiling as his parents engaged in yet another battle.

Probably over money.

Maybe over his father's numerous girlfriends.

Who knew?

Some of the tiles were covered in water stains and mold.

Others were missing.

But he never counted those.

Those instead were the pauses in between the yelling.

The tainted ones.

The dark ones that he would stare into until the shouting began again.

They also represented those moments in between the shouting when his father would grab his mother by her arms or her throat, push her against the wall, slap her face, punch her in the stomach, kick her in the ribs.

One time younger Adam, ten-year-old Adam, interfered.

Jumped on his father's back.

Screamed at him to stop.

But younger Adam, ten-year-old Adam, was small.

He was skinny with no muscles and not a lot of strength.

So it was easy for his father, his boxing champion father, with hard, lean muscle, to take young Adam's skinny arm and break it across his knee while his mother, bleeding from her nose and split lip, shamed him for hitting his father.

Now he knew better.

Now he would just lay in his bed and count the ceiling tiles while trying to drown out the screaming.

The refrigerator door opens and closes.

The crack of the beer can echoes through their thin-walled apartment and he knows that this argument is just on hold now. He knows his father will drain seven or eight of those and then either beat his mother up while he mocks her and she cries or he will pull her into the bedroom to fuck.

And Adam didn't know which he hated worse.

He hears a knock on the front door and the grumbling and stomping of his father as he goes to answer it.

"Adam! ¡Tu amigo maricón está aquí!" his father yells.

Then he hears "Gracias, Mr. Mendoza. You're too kind."

Adam can't help but smile.

Because Tomas is a faggot and he doesn't care who knows.

He can't help but admire his confidence in who he is. He has known since they were seven years old and they were sitting on top of the jungle gym at Ford's Park in the summer heat in the middle of July.

That's when chubby, bespectacled Tomas with his long parted curly hair in his high pitched feminine voice turned to Adam and said, "you know how in movies the boy always kisses the girl? On the lips? Well, I don't want to kiss girls. I want to kiss boys."

And Adam just shrugged his shoulders and continued to eat red licorice which they shared and climbed on the hot bars until the sun went down, and then Adam finally turned to him and said "well I like girls. But we can still be friends."