Warren Greene Joseph
"Stop rolling your eyes, son," My father scolded me. "It makes you look gay."
The transparent curtains in the dining room wavered from the heat blasting through the vents. My parents scheduled seven o'clock every night for family dinnertime. After they visited their marriage counselor a few months ago, they decided to take his advice and allocate their time to spend as a family. So every Sunday we went to church for over three hours because it seemed like church for black people takes up the entire day. For over three hours, I listened to a man preach about forgiveness and being accepting of others, but knowing that I sat next to a man that wouldn't accept my sexuality didn't sit right under my skin.
I forked at my macaroni while avoiding eye-contact with my mother. I knew that she wouldn't throw me under the bus, but the fact that she could is what made me anxious.
I forced a smile at my dad while laughing, "You're right. I was playin' basketball wit my boys and they was actin' kinda off, you know? Like some Froot-Loops, Pops. I startin' itchin like a mofo."
My dad, Isaiah Joseph, chuckled under his breath and shoveled a mouthful of green beans into his mouth, completely oblivious to the tapping of my foot under the table.
"Aye, when you go in the locker rooms don't drop the soap." Isaiah held his bloated gut and loosened his blue tie. "I remember back in my day when we'd towel whip this one gay boy in our gym class. He would always go change in the corner, but we all knew that he was watching us."
Isaiah's wife, Isabel, lifted the corners of her lips and shot an apologetic look over to me. The orange light from the chandelier caught on her glossy eyes.
I clenched my cold metal fork and waited to see if she would do something. She sipped her water and looked down at the ring on her finger. What would she even do? What could she do?
A few minutes after Isaiah finally went to bed, his wife snuck into my bedroom for a talk. According to her text message a few minutes ago, she had no idea what she wanted to say, but she felt that this had been put on hold for too long.
"Warren, wake up." She repeatedly tapped my warm cheeks to wake me up from my fake sleep.
"Hey, wassup?" I wiped the sleep from my eyes before stretching out my arms.
Isabel daintily rested her palms on her lap while staring at the royal blue wall across from us. I laid back down on my side and rested my forearms on the mattress, staring at her back. She looked down at her hands and then back up as if the words that she had previously formulated seemed to dissipate at the sight of her son.
She mumbled, "I'm here to talk about you. Give me your honest thoughts about this."
"My sexuality isn't something that I want to talk about right now, but since you want to talk then we can." I sat up again the headboard. "I don't feel safe at home. I haven't ever since I was thirteen. I feel safer at Milo's house than in my own."
"Why don't you feel safe?"
I blinked away a few hot tears while staring at the same wall that held Isabel's attention. I fiddled my thumbs in my lap before I huffed,
"You don't try to defend me. You don't think that what I am is real. You just look away whenever dad tries to 'roughen me up.' How can I feel safe when you don't even back me up emotionally," I scoffed when she flinched. "You're just as afraid of him as I am, and that's not really comforting."
Isabel wiped away mascara trailing down her cheeks and wiped the remnants onto her cotton-white nightgown. She crossed her feet at the ankles and curled a strand of curly hair around her index finger.
She swallowed and stammered, "I'm so sorry, baby. I mean, I have nothing against you being gay, you know? Your great uncle was gay and everyone in the family accepted him. It's just different knowing that my son is the one that's gay."
"I'm just asking that you treat me with respect--the way you've been treating me before you found out. I only have a few months left here before I go off to college, so if you can keep it on the low until then it would be great."
My phone dinged under my pillow.
Isabel smoothed down her curls and choked on a sob, "The day I gave birth to you, I made a vow to protect you from anything that would ever hurt you. Even if it was your father. I didn't realize you were hurting until I overheard you talking to Milo the last night."
I looked up from my hands and pursed my lips. I was on the phone last night, but with Avery and not Milo.
Khari Vincent Spence
Ever since our talk the other day, Milo stuck to me like glue. I walked out of class to my locker and seconds later I would hear her footsteps running up to approach me. I welcomed her company since she offered a good distraction. A few more months and I could disappear.
I peered out of the corner of my eye to see her sitting cross-legged with her right foot in her hands. Her fuzzy socks protected her feet from the chill in the apartment since the heater broke and my aunt refused to buy a space heater until November hit. The aroma of lavender flooded the apartment.
Her backpack sat next to my door and her jacket on the seat at my desk. When Cleo told her to make herself at home, Milo took the phrase literally.
"What's this about?" Milo wiped her hands covered in pickle juice on a paper towel and handed me the jar.
I grabbed one for myself and sighed heavily, "You asked me like ten times already! It's about these three men traveling to find a room. That's all I'm finna tell you. Just watch it."
Milo clasped her glossy lips shut and stayed quiet for the rest of the film. Halfway throughout the movie she bit into a pickle too loudly and the juice flew onto the laptop screen.
"Let them believe," the Stalker narrated. "And let them have a laugh at their passions. Because what they call passion actually is not some emotional energy, but just the friction between their souls and the outside world..."
Tarkovsky was a genius living in a time when his art couldn't be fully appreciated. He was a visionary beyond his time. One of the main characters in the show, the writer, I could relate to. He feared losing his artistic inspiration; I feared losing my sanity.
My eyes landed onto my black journal that sat next to my sneakers near my door. I didn't write in it for a few days after going back to school. Not after I had the nightmare of my best friend's accidental death. What does a kid even do in that situation? Flee or wait until he gets pinned with a murder that he didn't commit intentionally? I stayed behind, holding his warm body and staring at the blood seeping into the hem of my jeans.
Everyone back home thought that I was a murderer.
"Honest question: are you depressed? Cause if you are then it's okay but I just wanna know," Milo pressed quietly.
"...Let them be helpless like children, because weakness is a great thing, and strength is nothing..."
I've come to realize that the girl couldn't stay quiet for more than ten minutes. She spoke about whatever popped into her mind and didn't seem to regret it afterward. Like a small child sneaking around to get into trouble She probably wouldn't keep trying to befriend me if she found out about my past in Atlanta.
I mumbled, "I don't know. I don't think I am; I'm always sad and angry. Why do you ask?"
"Because I was depressed a few years ago. No one wanted to diagnose it, especially not my parents. They found it out-of-this-world that their daughter could be depressed," Milo played with my sleeve. "They just bought me stuff and said that I had nothing to be sad about."
She continued quietly, "But if you are depressed then I am here to talk."
I mumbled, "I appreciate that."
"Pliancy and weakness are expressions of the freshness of being. What has hardened will never win..."
☽
<<fireside chat: woot woot, i changed the quotes from Tarkovsky's film Stalker (1979) so they could really relate to what milo and khari are going through right now. at this point in their relationship, they're really emotionally vulnerable and what not. the only reason why they're associated is because khari says that he needs a distraction, but that's not fully the case.>>
everyone in this story has wild dynamics in relationships and they're all really fragile. miracle's relationship with everyone is shaky and she blames it on herself. milo has only warren to trust fully, but even he's distracted with his own troubles. warren has his mother, but even then she hasn't done anything to prove that she supports him. she's all talk and no action. with khari, he has cleo, but that's fresh and he only "trusts" her because it's keeping him sane knowing that he has someone that believes him. and that's all bye.