Chapter 2 - The Man of Wind and Moss

The two most important people in Marco’s life were his brother Monchito (brown, muscular, and depressed) and Sasha (Asian, bookish, and vaguely misanthropic). Between the two of them, Marco pinballed culturally and creatively. Monchito was return-pilled, thinking one’s heritage was everything, urging Marco to find his roots and embrace his Latino. Sasha, on the other hand, was an adopted Chinese girl, more or less disdainful of culture, and barely hiding a real loneliness. Looking back, everything had unraveled in the most logical way. After all, he had told Sasha everything about his brother.

Like that one time, in the early days of Marco’s youth, when his mom pulled him and his brother aside and said, “Your father is in his cups tonight.” Marco was probably twelve. Monchito (Ray at that point) was fifteen. “It’s a mojito night,” she explained.

Marco didn’t know what a mojito was, but he knew what “in his cups” meant. It meant that he’d get summoned to a drunken one-on-one, but then after the talking-to, Papa Patricio would pass out, and Marco would get to stay up late and play video games. Ray would probably sneak out and see his friends. Marco shot his brother a grin.

“He won’t bother you tonight,” Mom said, reading his face. “But don’t bother him either.”

Marco nodded and was happy enough to leave it at that, but Ray wasn’t. “Why can’t we bother him?” he asked.

“Just don’t.”

“But why not?”

Marco looked at his brother. His brother looked at their mom. Something was not being said, and Marco was confused.

“You know why. Deja la mierda.”

“What is she talking about?” Marco finally asked.

“When Dad drinks mojitos, he talks to ghosts.”

Later that night, after Ray snuck out and Mom went to bed, Marco pressed pause on his GameCube and shuffled to the back of the house. Outside he saw the silhouette of his father by the lake, standing in the moonlight. His hand gestures seemed so familiar. They were the same gestures and mannerisms Marco did when he himself was getting interrogated. “How are your grades?” his dad would ask. Left hand scratches right elbow. “Do you have friends?” Right hand to back of knee. “Are you happy?” Eyes to ground, never up. Now his dad, by the lake in the dark, made the same movements. But who was he talking to? And what were they asking?

It was a core memory, and it never left Marco. He and Ray joked about it once or twice, but the banter always lulled to an awkward death like neither of them actually wanted to admit how freaky it was. Marco had told Sasha about it in college, around the time of the folklore class. He recalled that she ate it up.

Or there was that time when Marco was twenty-two, home for the holidays, and it was Ray that pulled him aside. He now went by Ramón, and though he hadn’t fled to Puerto Rico yet, the idea was fast approaching. He wouldn’t shut up about it. Mentally, the tickets were already bought.

It was Christmas Eve, and their parents were asleep. Their small house in Tampa was cramped with decorative nothings, and even for Florida expectations, the night was unseasonably warm. Ramón made coquito and he and Marco slurped it out of plastic Star Wars cups. Marco’s had baby Anakin on it and the coquito was strong and cold.

“You know Mom and Dad don’t fuck with us, right?” Ramón asked. He just came right out with it. They were sitting on lawn chairs, and their garage was open. There were no trees on that cul-de-sac. Just flat, brown lawns and small homes packed side to side. They were the only brown family there.

“What are you talking about?” Marco asked.

“I’m telling you the truth, man,” Ramón continued. “Dad told me on Thanksgiving. He was blasted and he told me how he really feels about us.”

“Oh, yeah? And what did he say?”

“He said it was Mom’s idea and that they regretted it immediately.”

“Bullshit.”

“I’m serious,” Ramón said. Christmas always went like this. Ramón unearthed some family lore or aired some long-gestating grievance. Typically, Marco admired his brother, but he had an odd chemistry in him that put him into moods. It was like an energized sadness, and it had become everyone’s problem and lately, it had been getting worse. When Ramón reached for the bottle of coquito—a repurposed Bacardi Silver—the security light beamed on. Marco saw wetness around his brother’s eyes, but he didn’t want to bring attention to it.

“Okay, so what?” Marco said. To him, every boy expects their father to dislike them. It resides in the back of their head like being afraid of the dark. “So, what now?” Marco asked again. He was already dreading Christmas morning when he’d have to pretend this didn’t happen.

“I don’t know, I guess I gotta find someone that loves me,” Ramón said. “I gotta find something that’s for me.”

Marco nodded, unsure how to proceed. When he told Sasha about it later, she shook her head. “Why didn’t you tell him you loved him?” she asked. He didn’t know how to explain that there was something broken in Latinos that didn’t allow that to happen. She looked like she understood, but he couldn’t tell. She tried to make Marco feel better, but she didn’t have the words.

And most recently, there was that time when Marco went to Puerto Rico and it was a total bust. It was his big trip, and he went to visit Ramón, who had abruptly moved there. Marco’s parents had left Puerto Rico in their late teens. Marco was white-passing, Marco was bad at Spanish, and Marco never thought much about it. Ramón, on the other hand, had dark skin and deep brown eyes and there was something indigenous to his sloped nose and when Ramón came back from his initial trip to PR, he changed his name to Monchito, found a brown wife, and then fucked off to somewhere near Aguadilla.

Marco booked a room on the edge of Old San Juan. It was a solo trip, and he had touched down hoping to get ahold of Monchito and see whatever it was that his brother saw. To have some great revelation that was somehow unavailable in Florida. What happened instead was that his brother went ghost. Even Marco’s mother couldn’t get ahold of him.

It was hot the entire week, and Marco, bitching and moaning, wandered the cobblestone roads, bouncing around the tourist trap cantinas and Mallorca sandwich stands. He took long Ubers to various beaches. He went to La Placita and partied ’til the sun came up, watching the bartender pour Don Q into everyone’s open mouths. He bought shitty coke from a guy with a parrot. He made out with an Asian Baby Girl from California. He kept texting Monchito (still called Ray in his phone).

It was at La Playita del Condado where he finally got depressed. Or, rather, admitted it to himself and stopped with all the distractions. He had a sixer of lukewarm Madella Lights and a flask of Palo Viejo. He was ready to go back home and make a change. Like any self-loathing Latino, when his brother rejected him, he decided to love a white girl.

He didn’t tell Sasha about the plan right away, but he had a feeling she already knew, and he had a stronger feeling that she didn’t approve.