Olga Dies Dreaming(54)
“Absolutely,” Matteo offered flatly. “When the doctor told me my mother was dying. We were having a conversation, but in my mind, I was revisiting her taking me to school for the first time, trying to give me a haircut at home, going to look at colleges. Within seconds, I was also imagining her funeral and sitting shiva and how impossible that would be.”
Olga sat up and rested her head on his shoulders, taking one of his hands in hers. They sat silent for a moment.
“I wasn’t trying to bogart the conversation or anything, it’s just that I knew what you meant. Please keep going.”
Olga had never aired family business to a stranger before, but her only real-life confidant was, in this moment, the person she could not talk to. She took a breath.
“See, my brother cares so much what other people think. He wants to be liked so badly by everyone. It’s something about him that’s irritated me since we were kids. I’d always thought my brother was probably gay. I thought it was stupid for him to not just say who he is, especially these days, but, like I said, he gives so many fucks about his image and well, he’s kind of boxed himself into this persona. Today, we’re driving home, right? And I ask him for this favor—we have a rental unit in our house, it’s about to be vacant, and I want to offer it to a friend going through some shit. Anyway, in this one conversation, my brother basically confirms that yes, he is gay, and is completely closeted about it—”
“Shit,” Matteo interjected.
“That’s not even what I’m really tripping on. See, at his heart, Prieto’s an intensely compassionate person. The things he did for my father, the way he would care for him when he was just even dope sick, were ridiculous. But, he’s like that about strangers, too. Every person with a sob story in the neighborhood goes to him because they know what a sucker he is. If someone’s WIC gets screwed up, he’ll buy them milk and eggs to hold them over. So, here’s my friend—the boyfriend of my friend who killed himself. My brother’s met him before, the poor guy is grieving, he’s broke, he’s in need of a cheap apartment. To help him costs my brother nothing. And I was like, damn, this is a first, my brother turning his back on a sob story.”
“Because he didn’t want a gay guy in his house?”
Olga nodded. “More or less. I let my temper get the best of me and I just outed him. It got ugly. But here’s the thing, it struck me as out of character for Prieto, but somehow it also felt familiar. Suddenly, I remember being at the hospital with my father, feeling pissed at my brother for not showing up and seeing all the lonely people there, dying. And it was all so clear to me that my brother was afraid. Scared that if we saw him there, near all these gay guys, we’d recognize something about him in them. Which is irrational and crazy, I know, but I’ve always thought that’s really why he never came.”
“Not that crazy,” Matteo offered. “How many Christian fundamentalist homophobes who won’t even buy a wedding cake from someone gay end up being outed? Fear, self-loathing. All of it.”
“Right. So, the question I’m now asking is, if my brother’s need to protect this secret is so intense he’d turn his back on his own dying father, what else would he do? I’d always thought my brother’s goodness defined him, but what if it’s actually his fear? If protecting his image eclipses his impulse to do good? What would that mean about who my brother is?”
“What it would mean, Olga,” and this Matteo said with a wry smile, “is that your brother is just like every other politician.”
“Well … fuck,” Olga said, and swigged her beer.
BE KIND, REWIND
“I need to pee,” Olga declared after a couple more beers. “Show me where your bathroom is.”
Matteo straightened up. Olga started towards the front door and Matteo rushed to block her.
“Let’s go out and eat,” he offered. “There’s a great Peruvian spot literally around the corner. You can use the bathroom there.”
Olga looked at him quizzically for a moment. His eyes, round and brown, were glistening and wide and she saw in them his fear. The hoarding. He made it so easy to forget. It had been a long day and she collapsed her body against the doorframe.
“Matteo, I know, intellectually, that we should probably have a formal conversation about your … issue, but the truth of the matter is, I’m too damn tired and need to pee too badly to do that right now. Please, just let me in.”
Matteo looked straight at her, somewhat imploringly. He turned and rested his head on the door, slowly removing a set of keys from his pocket, then opening one side of the heavy oak and glass double doors.
“Wait here for a second,” he said, with more force than she expected. He grabbed the six-pack and the speaker, walked inside, and Olga could see several lights flicker on, a warm glow emerging from the foyer. Olga closed her eyes, her stomach suddenly sinking in the way stomachs do when one dreads the arrival of bad news. She understood the fright in Matteo’s eyes and felt it now, too. How long had it been since she felt so comfortable around someone she wasn’t related to? When, if ever, had she spoken so openly about herself with anyone, let alone someone she was sleeping with? It should feel uncomfortable, even terrifying, but with Matteo, it felt like relief. In his presence she felt the coil of herself unwind, physically and mentally. The human equivalent of the wonderful rum they had sipped together at Sylvia’s. Olga was not one to deprive herself sensory pleasure—sex, food, drink, travel. Emotionally, however, she had long been malnourished. Time with Matteo felt wildly indulgent. Six-course-meal-at-Le-Bernardin indulgent. But now practicalities inserted themselves. Practicalities, even as mundane as relieving one’s bladder, have a way of upending indulgences carried on for too long. A threshold stood between her belief that nothing this nice could ever last and her hope that maybe she was wrong.