The last few stops are the most intense, they feel like the dwindling hours of an End Day. The closer you’re getting to your final destination, the more alert you have to be, not wanting it to all go wrong when you’ve still got time to get it right.
I feel the tension in my chest, like my heart is being choked out. I’m too scared to even breathe because I might breathe too gay. I know that might sound like overkill to someone, but unless they’ve done years in the Bronx, I’m not interested in what they have to say. Body language is everything when you’re trying to stay alive. Think of all the animals in the wild who will bluff and have you thinking they’re tough as fuck when maybe they’ve never fought for their lives before. Valentino has got muscles, but can he fight? I can fight, but I don’t have the muscles to win, so I try to blend in, camouflage like a white-passing rabbit in the snow. That means not drawing attention to myself by holding the hand of the boy I really like. It’s heartbreaking to even have these thoughts, but that’s where we’re at up here.
We hit that last stop and arrive in Mott Haven without any predators lunging at us. I never get cocky in my neighborhood either, because there’s always people rolling through who you don’t know and they don’t know you and everyone is sizing each other up and the wrong person makes moves to come out on top. We pass this one dude who’s minding his own business, deep in his beef patty. Then another asks us for the time, and I get nervous because sometimes someone is just trying to get you to whip out your phone so they can steal it. I have Valentino check his watch and tell the dude that it’s forty past three.
I know my block isn’t much, but I love it. There are flags for Jamaica, Dominican Republic, and Puerto Rico in windows doing double duty as country pride and curtains. There’s a no parking!!! sign graffitied on a wooden fence, and there are always cars in that driveway; that disrespect has become a running joke with Team Young. I haven’t stepped foot inside the Congregational church right by this little park, but I like the castle vibes.
Then there’s our brownstone in a row of others, all similar in brick and build but distinct by upkeep, decorations, and door colors. This brownstone has been in Dalma’s family for generations, and its outsides could use some love but the inside is bursting with it. I’m so relieved when Valentino and I go up the stairs and make it to the front door that’s as red as the Times Square glass benches. I pull out the key that I used to scratch Valentino’s name into the bench at the Brooklyn Bridge and unlock the door.
We made it.
We’re safe.
And I’ve brought home a guy for the first time.
He might even be the last.
“I’m here,” I shout up the stairs.
There are three levels to the brownstone. Dalma and I have our bedrooms on the ground floor where we also have access to a small backyard plus our own private entrance, though we don’t really use it because that hallway is practically a storage unit with bins and boxes and furniture that Dalma plans on refreshing for her room but hasn’t gotten around to it. The whole thing is a fire hazard, honestly, and something we should correct ASAP. Dayana, Floyd, and Dahlia have their bedrooms upstairs, and there’s also a ladder that leads to the rooftop, where I do my tanning and sunburning.
I lead Valentino through the middle floor and into our living room.
“This place is so nice,” Valentino says.
He stops by the wall that has all our family pictures. I love all the casual ones, but I don’t really get involved with the professional photo shoots at JCPenney because I always feel like an add-on. Almost like they know they have to invite me so I don’t feel weird even though there’s no evidence that they’re thinking shit like that, I get nothing but love from my guardians. I just know that if I weren’t living here, I wouldn’t be invited to the studios. So why should I go just because they were forced to take me in? This is something I’m going to be working through for years if I get years to work through things.