Illegitimi Non Carborundum, by Carlos

“Illegitimi Non Carborundum …

Don’t Let the Bastards Grind You Down”

She had been a nun, a shadow of a woman who had infiltrated the cloistered nunnery not to be the voice, the hands of God, but rather to introduce darkness into the core of light. In the years she sidewinded among the devote sisters, she sowed the seeds of discord and fear, being immune to the beatific acts of devotion surrounding her. Rather than offering healing and solace to a community long in need of these virtues, she concocted a bubbling blasphemous brew. And thus, she was released of her vows and cast out into the realm of unsuspecting men and women. And for years, she became a contamination amongst citizens in her neighborhood, infecting them with her mellifluous words and her soulless deeds.

Death finally claimed the hellkite, but the aftermath of her deeds continued to radiate out like heat from an untended firepit. For so many decades, the neighbors had been in danger of sacrificing their immortal souls; even now that the corpse moldered in its grave, her influence continued to demand their attention. Although they had been freed from her shackles, they remained imprisoned by memories. Some even considered the possibility that perhaps, just perhaps, they were tainted by the malignancy that still blighted them.

One day, a bright amber cart guided by a dappled mare rolled into town. At the seat of the wagon sat an old man with a grizzled beard and a booming voice, announcing his presence. His voice resonated throughout the valley, yet it was as gentle as the wool of a newly shorn lamb, “I am Raphael, a seller of treasures long sought after but rarely found. I offer them to you but for a few paltry coins, yet your investments will reward you unmeasurably as do the beams of light from the stars above. Come close, dear friends, and accept my offerings. Come forth, brothers and sisters, and cast down the anchors that weigh you down. Come forth, righteous men, women and beasts and drink from the font I offer you.” Needless to say, the citizens were intrigued, perhaps inspired, and one by one they approached the peddler, curious to learn his ways.

The first to approach was a massive cinnamon brown dog with its tail tucked between its legs. As it nervously approached the wagon, it pulled back its lips, revealing menacing, sharp teeth. The peddler held out one hand and whispered, “I know, dear one, that you have been abused and abandoned. Alas, the world knows not that all creatures great and small are in Spirit’s embrace.” The dog lowered its head and gingerly approached, the magnificence of the itinerant peddler now evident. “Sir, I have nothing to offer, yet, I long for so much, for the gentle touch of my beloved caretaker, for the tender loving words 'Good boy' whispered into my ear, for the freedom to love unconditionally, even as I am loved unconditionally.” I have been injured by one who no longer walks amongst us. Her curses and threats have seared my soul and made me fearful of humanity. In sleep, she still hovers nearby as I am consumed by spasms of fear and despair.” The peddler teared up and offered wisdom. He replied, “I know not why evil is incarnate. I know not why good is the world highest code. What I do know is that unconditional love will be rewarded, in time. Allow me to offer you a blessing on your head that you may always know that love will always reign supreme.” The dog, now smiling, genuflected before his benefactor, arose and trotted off into the shadows, knowing someday, someday but in the blink of an eye, he would awaken to the eternal caress of love.

A widow dressed in black garments approached slowly from behind a copse of weeping willows. Her gentle husband had died in a tragic accident in the wooded glen near the village a few months earlier. Going out into the countryside one summer morn, his horse had vaulted when a lion materialized unexpectedly from behind an oak, and the man tumbled off the horse. Though the lion ran off, the man was ushered unto gentle death surrounded by a quilt of overhanging firmament. His wife grieved unabashedly, withdrawing from the eyes of her neighbors. Alas, sensing that the widow was an easy target, the old woman snarled out bitter words, “I see, your ill-fated husband has abandoned you, leaving you to live out your years in utter misery, hoping for ultimate reunion. You know, of course, that he has flown away to a dreamless land, never to awaken. And as for you, the same inky nothingness awaits.” And she flew off cackling and chortling a demonic laugh, knowing she had unraveled the widow’s faith. Knowing the widow’s heart had little residue of hope, the peddler approached and offered her a tiny glass bottle containing a single grain of rice, girdled by a golden thread. As she looked at her offering, she noted her name as well as that of her husband etched into the grain. “What be this?” she asked the affable gentleman whose eyes sparkled with the inviting light of the sun. “Your faith, your love, your souls are conjoined for all time. Be patient and go out and harvest strawberries and rescue fledging sparrows fallen from their nests. In time, you will be rewarded with a table set with delights sweeter than the sweetest of honey and your heart will nestle within its own comforting nest. Be patient and live life like sunflowers unaware of winter’s approach,” he replied. Being unable to pay for her gift, she asked, “Since I have no coin, may I go and find the reddest, sweetest berries hidden beneath the shadows of a grove of white birches as a modest offering?” He smiled and nodded. She ran off dancing in the wind, knowing that the blade that cleaved her heart had been extricated, knowing that even now the scar was closing as two hearts, separated by the schism of time and space, pulsed with synchronicity anew.

Finally, the evil doer’s worst victim stepped forth. It was evident that his heart was heavy with grief, an affliction resulting not from the death of the neighbor, but rather from the pain he carried, believing that his vindictive thoughts had damned him. For years, she had tormented him because he was different, that is, a man who genuinely radiated light. In him, she recognized what she could never be. Thus, the only way she could deal with the mirrored reflection that taunted her psyche was to attack. He sought to ignore her assaults, to deflect the pellets of spewed hatred, to heal over the sullied wounds, but over time, being a man, bitter acrimony erupted from within. For the first time in his life, he envisioned doing harm to another, witnessing his tormentor’s dying the death of a thousand cuts. He wanted to look into her eyes even as her life force ebbed away, and see terror in her eyes, a terror of knowing that as she had sown, so must she now reap. It terrified the boy so thoroughly that his soul had morphed into such an absence of grace, that he feared the sun itself had turned its back on him. The peddler offered the boy a handkerchief as the boy wept bitterly. Finally, the boy said, “Forgive me, forgive me, for I am immerse in sin, a sin so bottomless, I know God Himself weeps for me.” Then he fell upon his knees in a bout of anguish so severe, the spasms within his chest became like bellows stoking a raging furnace. The peddler kneeled before the boy, held him up, and enveloped him within his mighty chest. “Mijo, cry not, for your acknowledgement of fault and your desire to exorcise it have saved you. I offer you, the mightiest of gifts within my wagon, a small seed of the sacred tree that once grew in a desert far away. Under this tree, the enlightened sought redemption and were offered healing water. And they arose, forgave the world, forgave themselves. You have proven worthy. Now go out into the wilderness and find a small plot of loam where this seed may germinate. Watch over it, nurture it, let the world come to partake of its fruit. Tonight, my son, God Himself shall dance joyfully, for today, your free has released evil.” Now afoot, he found himself alone amidst the chirping of crickets and echoes of the constellations, questioning whether he had just awakened from a dream. Opening the palm of his hand, one single seed rested within his hand. He stepped forth into the wilderness, never to be seen again. Yet, in an undisclosed primeval forest, a healing tree flourishes, jettisoning winged seeds unto every corner of the world.

And thus, my friends, in spite of the blissful dreams that we quest after, they often remain elusive. Yet utopia is ever possible, but only when the dreamer somersaults courageously… into the nightmare.

© 12 February 2018

About the Author

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming. Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

Snow Falling on a Sleepless Night, by Carlos

Snow fell last night

like silent doves descending from heaven’s realm.

For one brief moment, the voices of angry men subsided,

and the weary slumbered, cocooned within folds of peace.

Empty promises and shattered dreams flew off.

The recent dead again reposed like opalescent bubbles in frozen lakes.

And spectral omens flew off, declaring no more of darkness, no more of fears.

Prayers and hope for our land broke out from wounded hearts.

Men and women of stolid hopes again looked up, declaring,

We shall not fall as pawns.

We shall not despair the ebbing of the light.

For like the snow quietly descending from above,

so shall we our joy proclaim,

as we restore what we have lost.

Let the bugle, therefore, rent the clouds above;

let the snows purge the world anew,

cloaking us with conviction,

that beneath a mantle of pristine white,

we may again rejoice.

© 21 Nov 2016 

About the Author 

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.”  In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter.  I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic.  Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming.  Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth.  My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun.  I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time.  My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands.  I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty.  I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us. 

In the Backlot of a Cowpen, I Sprouted, by Carlos

I thought I had forgotten; I wish I had forgotten. However, as I consciously pulled the threaded needle through the fabric of those distant memories, the details slowly encroach upon me, one after the other, mushrooming like a cloud of shadows hovering, lurking, having waited patiently for the day they could again walk upon the earth. And as I flesh out the details of those distant memories, as they become real, even now decades later, I roll over in my bed and shed one solitary tear although in truth I think I have mercifully forgotten why I weep.

It was a hot, sultry day in early August. Having packed my few essentials and tossing and turning for hours, I lay tormented in my bed, enveloped in the silence of the night, pondering the moment when I would have to say good-bye to all I knew, all I was. I arose ever so quietly lest I disturb my parents’ sleep although I knew that on that night, no one slept. I dressed and tip-toed out into the darkness, the stars and moonlight serving as my beacons. I walked the few blocks to the man whom I had met only months earlier, the first man whose warm embrace I knew. Waiting for me at the threshold of his home as I approached, I enveloped myself in his embrace and we held each other, for our time together had been so brief, our future so uncertain. Among the shadows of encroaching dawn, we walked into the garden he and I had planted, smelling the unfurling tea roses and interlacing our fingers as though we could never let go.  Our time was brief. I promised to return; he promised to wait until that day. I walked back to my parents’ home, tears cascading down my cheeks, my heart feeling as though it would tear through my sternum.

Being that I had to report to the army recruiting office near Oregon and Mills across the street from San Jacinto Plaza in central El Paso at 9 a.m., my parents were already at foot. They were trying so hard to be stoic, even as I tried to deny the reality of events around me. They dressed, wanting to break bread with me one more time before I flew away. My father pulled out the Chevy, its dented fender a vestige of my learning-to-drive days, and we headed out to a Denny’s for breakfast. We ate, we chatted, but in retrospect we were so far away, trying so hard to hold on, trying so hard not to let go. Afterwards, in the parking lot, I reminded myself that although my world was in flux, I would return. I tried to capture the rays of the early morning sun, to hold on to the gentle touch of my mother’s fragile hands, knowing I was about to be thrust into manhood in spite of my wishes to remain cocooned in the chrysalis of my childhood. I wanted to bask in Peter’s arms the rest of that summer and forge our emerging lives; I wanted to till our garden. I wanted to comfort my parents and continue to celebrate our Sunday morning tradition of menudo and sweet bread. But from the moment I received my draft notice weeks earlier, I knew that change was inevitable. I longed for comfort like a new-born babe finding himself not in the arms of a mother who had anticipated his birth, but rather in the emptiness of an institutional layette. A few minutes before 9, we arrived at my destination, and I requested they just drive off, afraid of betraying my macho bravado with a deluge of emotions. Accepting the inevitability of time and circumstances, I recognized the futility of my longings.

Arriving at the reception area, I found twenty some boys quietly awaiting the arrival of all the conscripts and volunteers. I took a seat, trying like most to become invisible, knowing that that luxury could not be so. Promptly at 9, several U.S. Army officials festooned with a multitude of colorful ribbons upon their chests, ushered us into a room nearly and after a cursory introduction, lined us up, had us raise our right hands, and had us recite an oath, offering our allegiance to military duty. Some of the boys were patriots stepping forward to champion our nation’s cause voluntarily, believing their blood would nurture glorious ideals and righteous causes. The rest of us were boys whose lives were interrupted by the draft but who nonetheless were determined to answer the call. We were simply boys who had run out of deferments and saw no escape. Regardless of motivations, all were now a union of brothers who would be preened and molded for combat duty in distant lands. Earlier, I had debated declaring myself a conscientious objector since I did recognize that the war was but a ruse, a rich man’s war being fought by a disproportionate number of poor boys, fighting and dying for an unpopular war to maintain a corrupt government. However, I thought such an action would dishonor my uncle and father’s valorous service a generation earlier, in spite of the fact that they had returned to a country that still saw them as second-class citizens. I also considered declaring that I was gay. After all, I had battled with my evolving gay identity for years and just that spring I had been joyously thrust into its lovely, complex culture and been initiated into the fold, when Peter and I met and declared our love. However, I feared the long-term consequences of speaking my truth for dodging the Vietnam draft, especially since so many men pretended unsuccessfully to be gay to avoid military service. Furthermore, being gay still carried a negative psychological stigma that I did not yet have the wherewithal to question or deny. Perhaps, I was simply an Emerson blow heart dutifully paying his taxes even as Thoreau languished in jail for refusing to do so, recognizing the conflict of their time was but a land grab of epic proportions. Perhaps, I was simply a coward who feared the repercussions of not moving to the back of the bus. Thus, I mumbled my oath, swallowed hard, and lowered my eyes in resignation, for once the words are given wings, I recognize oaths become actualized.

I have but snippets of recollections of what transpired the remainder of that day since everything from then on out was a whirlwind of events. We were herded into buses and summarily hauled to El Paso International Airport to be transported to L.A. Never having flown, I looked down at America stretching out before me, wishing I could open the airplane door and soar away to discover it, know it, claim it for my own. Descending upon L.A. that evening, my mouth was agape at the lights that emblazoned beneath me even toward the most distant horizons. They appeared like a massive crab stretching out forever as though valiantly battling against the inky blackness of a void devouring it.  Never did I know America was so massive, so oblivious to the realities of a boy from the fringes of its seams. Upon arriving at LAX, we were goaded toward a small two-engine plane, which followed the California coastline toward our final destination at Fort Ord near Monterey. It was late and the darkness of the night mirrored the trepidation I felt within. Arriving at our destination so late at night along with hundreds of other boys who had arrived from throughout the country, we were finally allowed to bed down in army-issued bunkbeds. The room went dark, and we coiled within the itchy olive drab wool blankets and sought refuge from the uncertainty of what awaited. I pulled out a small locket containing Peter’s hair, and held it to my chest, desperately trying to keep my cloaked sobs to myself. Although I wanted to awaken from the nightmare, exhaustion finally overwhelmed me and I lapsed into a sleep that momentarily staved off the fears and doubts of the unknown. Soon enough, we knew we would awaken and discover the sun water coloring the clouds. We were boys from dusty Texas cow towns like El Paso, Mesilla and Ysleta. We were boys from the windswept great plains of Dodge City and Enid in Oklahoma and Kansas. We were boys from western hamlets of Alamosa, Farmington, and Gallup in Colorado and New Mexico. We were boys from the inner city barrios and ghettos of Watts and East LA. We had so little in common, except that we were a divergent mass of humanity about to be molded by fates that would anchor us to the annals of history.

Years after my stint in the U.S. Army after decades of trying to forget the past, I walked into the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C. The experience was unexpectedly personal for me. I reflected on the millions who not long before had been unwillingly uprooted from their homes in Germany and Poland and throughout Europe’s backbone, only to awaken in camps with names such as Dachau and Buchenwald, Auschwitz-Birkenau and Sobibor. Entering a cattle car where “asphalt culture” Jews and “degenerative pervert” gays had once been transported, I broke down and wept. My brothers and sisters from American cow towns and from hope-defying Polish ghettos had been sacrificed, and I’m not sure history has ever truly come to terms with the magnitude of the sacrifices. I was one of the lucky ones. I survived something I would rather forget. I returned relatively intact to my home, to the cow town that infused me with its blood, allowing me to tell a story history would prefer not be told except perhaps in hushed whispers during moonless nights.

© 29 Aug 2016, Denver 

About the Author 

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.”  In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter.  I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic.  Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming.  Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth.  My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun.  I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time.  My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands.  I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty.  I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

Life is Indeed a Royal Flush, by Carlos

When my grandmother was 94, the family pushed her to become an American citizen. Although she had lived in this country for 90 years, we feared her social security benefits might be compromised since, unlike my grandfather, she had never forfeited her permanent resident green card. Now, my grandmother had always, to our knowledge, been an upstanding citizen, raising her two sons as a single parent, remaining steadfast even during war and the Depression, and ultimately becoming the core matriarch of the family. She was a survivor to be reckoned with if anyone was foolish enough to provoke her. On the day of her citizenship hearing, we discovered that due to her sultry past, her application had not been considered. Although we only knew the ethical, principled icon of virtue, we learned she had, in fact, been a bigamist as well as a federal felon. When she had approached the immigrations officials, she wasn’t attempting to be duplicitous; she simply assumed that events that had transpired decades earlier carried no weight in legal matters She shared with us that when she was very young, she had married her childhood sweetheart and shortly thereafter had given birth to her two sons, my uncle and my father. Unfortunately, her husband Carlos, soon started smoking and pursuing a wayward life. Having no patience for his nefarious lifestyle, she decided to leave him and raise her sons as a single parent in spite of the scarlet letter she would have to wear in the community for shunning her man. Possessing no job skills, but being responsible for two hungry babies, she bootlegged, brewing and distributing home brew in the neighborhood. Since Prohibition was the law of the land, she was apprehended and charged. Laughingly, she told us that although she spent only two days in jail, in the evenings of both days her jailers released her to care for her children. Apparently, nothing became of the charges although the record of her infraction remained. To add insult to injury, after she fulfilled her duty to her sons, she agreed to marry her beau, a man who for years had been smitten by her charm, attractiveness, and independence. Unfortunately, she neglected to inform the judge who married them that she had never divorced her first husband. She must have convinced herself that marriage vows have expiration dates. After her past caught up with her, she sought the counsel of a kind lawyer and benefactor who, in fact, remained her friend until he died of advanced age. For years she walked to his office on the first of the month and paid him $2.00 religiously until the debt was settled. By the time I was born, my grandparents were starting out their lives free and clear. However, when my mother unexpectedly died and my father, my grandmother’s son, found he could not raise me properly, I became my grandparent’s son. In the truest sense of the word, they became my parents, and better parents I could not have asked for. As for the misunderstanding with the U.S. Immigration Office, after the meeting with the officials, my grandmother just laughed, and we laughed along with her when she informed us that she had never really wanted to become an American citizen anyway. Why upset the applecart by becoming what you are not? She died decades later at peace and with no regrets. Thus, early in life she became my prime candidate for the don’t-sweat-the-small-stuff merit badge. After all, God recognizes that life requires tenacity. No doubt, He rewards those who can sleep through a droning academic lecture delivered by a verbose professor even as they dream of the bowl of steaming menudo awaiting back home.

Although it skipped a generation, namely my father, I not only inherited her intelligence, but I also inherited her roll-with-the-punches instincts. She may not have been educated, being that she dropped out in the third grade, but when I was in college and trying to prove to her how bright this egotistical college boy was, she looked me in the eye like a hawk flushing out its quarry and upbraided me, telling me, “Mijo, eres tan inteligente que caminas en tu propia mierda.” “My son, you are so bright, you walk on your own shit.” She taught me humility and gratitude with her wise words. I never again did allow my swelled head to believe that I was better than anyone else.

To illustrate our binary connection that demonstrates how we were not that much different from each other, some years ago, I was entertaining friends at our home. Suddenly, one of my guests pulled out a rubber cock ring from his salad plate, an appliance that must have been buried beneath the romaine and the croutons. He held it up to everyone with a disgusted look on this face. The cock ring had been a white elephant gift someone had given me a few days earlier, and I can only guess that I must have inadvertently left it in on the kitchen counter where I prepared our meal a few days later. I knew I had to think fast or possibly lose a friend as well as my reputation as a host. Attempting to disarm the situation with my Cheshire cat smile, I informed him that I had purchased and deliberately placed the cock ring on his plate, in hopes that it would inspire him to head out to Charlies that night and find himself a lusty cowboy with whom to spend the rest of his life. He must have accepted my stretching of the truth, for even to this day he has continued to accept dinner invitations to our home. Later, as I reflected on how I had saved the day, I thought I heard my grandmother’s muffled laughter at how I had managed to turn a possible misfortune into a victory through guile and humor, qualities that are greatly underestimated, especially when caught between a rock and a hard place…no pun intended.

A few days ago, I found myself among fellow writers at the Denver Gay and Lesbian Community Center, where we congregate to share our stories, our adventures with life. Notebook and keys, pens and reading material in hand, I went to the lavatory to relieve my demanding bladder. As I flushed, in slow motion I noted my keys tumbling from my hand and into the bowl, and in a split second, my world turned topsy-turvy. In a surreal moment, I saw the keys swirl around the bowl as though navigating on a white water river and disappear into the guts of the plumbing system. I remember thinking, “Wow, this toilet sure has a strong current.” I plunged my hand with some hesitation into the throat of the porcelain throne, hoping to avoid some awkward explanation, in a desperate effort to salvage my keys and my pride. After the water stopped gurgling, I stood there with what I suspect was a classic what-do-I-do-now stupefied look on my face. I debated simply walking out as though nothing had happened to save face.  Nonetheless, I washed my hands, informed the receptionist at the front desk of my misfortune, and headed up to the reading room. I was annoyed at my fate as I pondered my next options, to walk home, to call Ron at work, to kick myself in the tuchus. I decided to muddle through the reading with as much grit as I could muster.  I found it ironic that just before I read, one of the readers mentioned flushing a cigarette down the toilet, and I took that as cosmic synchronicity.  At that moment the tension dissipated like steam released from a boiling kettle. I recognized my situation to be what it was, small stuff. Gratefully, I discovered a new friend when she drove me home after the reading. Furthermore, by the next day, I had managed to replace all my keys. As for the Community Center, it was not, to my knowledge, deluged by a flood of water from a backed-up toilet on steroids. Later, as I told Ron of my misadventure of the day, we both laughed at how calm I was. In the past, I had cringed and gnashed my teeth when buffeted by life’s inevitable headaches as when my cat pied on my pants one night in retribution for some perceived offense to his feline sensibility. I didn’t notice the stench of cat urine until the following morning at a job interview. Ironically, I still got the job. Now, I just smile, and say, “Shit happens.” And at such moments I can feel my grandmother’s energy as she reminds me to wear my don’t-sweat-the-small-stuff merit medal with pride. Then, we both laugh until tears roll down our eyes. In the end, I suspect most of life is small stuff. When life rankles the soul, I recall an iconic epitaph I recently saw on a Key West tombstone. The carving on granite, I told you I was sick, is undeniably a testament to human grit. Therefore, Mámi, kudos to you. You taught me to use what God gave me. I’ve learned that He smiles at my victories even when I flush them down the crapper.

© 22 Aug 2016 

About the Author 

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.”  In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter.  I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic.  Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming.  Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth.  My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun.  I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time.  My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands.  I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty.  I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

The Invisible Line of Cigar Store Wooden Indian, by Carlos Castillo

The Plaza Theater in El Paso is one of those 1930’s iconic theaters built to immortalize cinematography. Entering into the Spanish colonial building festooned with ornate furnishings, red velvet curtains and ornate plasterwork propelled me to a world I could only imagine. After all, I lived in a 3-room adobe with no indoor plumbing. As I sat marveling at the ornate proscenium arch before me and the overhead ceiling with astronomically correct twinkling stars and projected gauzy clouds, I felt the awe of peasants in the Middle Ages when they walked into Gothic cathedrals radiating light through stained glass rose windows. I was on a school-sponsored trip to watch John Wayne’s rendition of Texas’ war of independence at the Alamo. When the camera panned the battlefield depicting Mexican soldiers falling in a barrage of bullets, my peers applauded and yelled enthusiastically at the carnage. After all, we were fellow Texans, disdainful of the Mexican hoard. It did not matter that the Mexicans spoke our language and looked like most of us. During the climactic scene when the small band of Texas insurgents were overwhelmed by the formidable Mexican army of Santa Ana, I felt strangely uncomfortable although I did not really understand why. Later, when I asked mi papá who at that time had not yet become a naturalized citizen to explain, he replied that films do not always depict history accurately, thereby challenging my vision of truth.

Throughout the years, being a child of immigrant parents had thrust me into a spiral of doubt. Although I ate beans and tortillas at every meal and considered La Virgen de Guadalupe my spiritual benefactress, the last thing I wanted to be labeled as was Mexican. Being accused of being one invariable resulted in angry words and school yard brawls. After all, the Hollywood stock character of Mexicans as poor and uneducated at best, corrupt and violent at worst, nettled my consciousness. I did not question this perception until years later when mis padres took me back to their native Jalisco in an effort to show me another facet of my identity. They, the Mexican people I encountered, did not fit the cartoonish stereotypes of sarape-draped men leading donkeys by the halter nor rebozo-cocooned women selling calla lilies at the marketplace. The relatives and human beings I met were poetic, cosmopolitan, and generous in their affection for me. My Tía Concha slaughter a hen from her garden and prepared a mole redolent with spices that left me lapping up the bowl with delight that evening. Noting my gustatory seduction, she again prepared the same complex dish the following day. Years later, I would recall a similar awe when after being legally deaf for years, I again heard after the advancement of deaf technology. Thus, I returned back home with a new-found appreciation for being Latino. Endlessly I played the rancheros/ bolero recordings of Javier Solís with his liquid brown eyes, bronze face, and moustache draping his pouting lips. I sat at the edge of my seat watching movies of Cantinflas, internalizing his typical we-live-to-laugh Mexican philosophy. I immersed myself in the national consciousness of my parents’ homeland while simultaneously remaining firmly rooted in my pride of the red, white and blue. I became a scion of two cultures, recognizing that my soul was forged of the silver of Taxco as well as in the coal of West Virginia. Thus, I started to reject the stereotypes that had calcified in me over a lifetime, to reject the scurrilous labels and images I had internalized, as a Mexican, as an American, and as an American of Mexican descent, and to drink water made sweet in earthenware cantaros even as I indulged in Oscar Mayer hotdogs.

Because The Alamo became a lesson for me about illusions, ultimately I recognized that even darkness can lead to vision. However, to see, it was important that I first embrace my blindness. Indigenous peoples have consistently been stereotyped. The oversimplified and inaccurate stereotypical depictions of identities run the gamut from noble savage to ignoble barbarian and from Indian princess and squaw pejorative to wise sage. The stereotypical influences are so pervasive many Native peoples today are actively pursuing a more accurate understanding of themselves and their cultures in an attempt to reject the internalized effects of these misconceptions and labels. Many are reclaiming their native identities, recognizing they are the people; they are human beings, not cigar store wooden Indian caricatures. Likewise, we gay and lesbian people struggle to define who we are as we confront the insidious stereotypes foisted about us by media even in this era of social progress. We struggle to reject the offensive humor and defamatory stereotypes. I weary of the sociopathic, effeminate and butch, dangerous and predatory, immortal, suicidal labels queer folk are subjected to. These stereotypes only foster hatred and prejudice. Like Native peoples, we too have become caricatures, metaphoric cigar store gays and lesbians. Of course, I understand that the media stigmatizes many groups from repressed Brits to evil Mexicans, and from racist white Southerners to doddering elders. After all, stereotypes are invaluable because audiences have been conditioned to expect certain behaviors from stock characters. The point is that audiences willingly accept established archetypes in place of genuine character development, thus freeing up remaining frames to more interesting and adrenaline-pumping scenes. Thus, unfortunately the cigar store wooden Indian, in its many manifestations, persists.

Over time, I have learned to savor the diversity and complexity of the human experience. Yet, false depictions continue to drift through the air like the stench of something unspeakable. Most recently, the vitriolic venom being spewed like explosive diarrhea by a “You’re fired” candidate and his followers about people who are like you and me angers me, but in my anger I find the courage to speak up and pull back the fog of blindness, the silence of deafness. I will not sanction cigar store wooden icons of any of God’s creations. I will not be a cigar store Latino or gay wooden icon.

The adage a picture is worth a thousand words is heartening. One balmy fall day in l960, I walked into a theater intent on immersing myself into a world I little understood. Several hours later, I emerged transfixed and transformed, pondering the implications of what I had witnessed. Although we have all been invited to attend a banquet in which all forms of delights, both sweet and savory, are ladled unto our bowls, unfortunately too often we pull back from the table because we fear the unknown. And in fearing, in withdrawing, and in condemning, we deny ourselves the wonders of an elaborately prepared spicy mole, made rich by old world and new world hands. Life is a journey in which we need not behold others nor ourselves reflected on the prism of cigar store wooden misrepresentations.

© August 19, 2016, Denver

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.”  In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter.  I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic.  Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming.  Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth.  My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun.  I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time.  My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands.  I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty.  I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

My Diploma is Green and White, by Carlos

Almost fifty years have passed since I graduated from Technical High School, and as I recall those years of innocence and impertinence, frames materialize like a strange harvest in a room long abandoned and musty with disuse. Being introspective by nature, I am ambivalent about pulling back the curtain of time. Nevertheless, as soon as I activate my memory banks, endless frames of quasi-like silent-era flashbacks emblazon the darkness. In my mind’s eye, we, the young people from a former time, beam with the radiance of youth and expectations, anxious to discover our horizons, to journey down the gurgling eddies of time.

From a historical context, 1968 was a cataclysmic year in American history. Most of us were well aware that our fates were changing. Our nation was in the throes of war in Southeast Asia, and many of us could no longer bury our heads in denial. Soon, we would be called to fight in foreign shores, forfeiting our innocence, and in some cases our lives. Our duty done, we would return to the States to face averted eyes and whispered silence due to the war’s unpopularity. By 1968, the civil rights movement was roaring. America was burning, citizens were taking up the call for righteous causes, and democracy was being tested. Only weeks before my graduation, a great prophet for justice was assassinated in Memphis, prompting a renewed awareness to activism, to an acknowledgement that a democracy of the few and the privileged is but a Portuguese man-of-war ensnaring with its venomous tentacles. Furthermore, in 1968 feminist protestors targeted the Miss America Beauty Pageant as sexist and demeaning to women, further highlighting a civil rights movement that continues to this day. Unfortunately, our last vestige of hope withered on the vine when the hopeful rhetoric of Robert Kennedy was silenced and our disillusioned with American politics germinated in full. Thus, we, resplendent in our graduating colors, green and white, recognized that due to changing social norms, the world we were inheriting was a powder keg. We found ourselves confronting realities over which we had so little control and conflicted about the role we would ultimately play in the annals of history. We were being catapulted headlong into a microburst of epic proportions.

In a sense, my diploma was a rite of passage. For one moment we allowed ourselves to believe that we were stepping forward into a new America. We were idealistic and naïve. After all, most of my classmates were first generation Americans or newly arrived immigrants whose fathers slaved long hours to keep afloat and whose mothers struggled with day-to-day economics as homemakers or underpaid laborers. Nonetheless, our parents had placed their hopes for the future on our generation, yet within a year most of us would recognize we were small fish thrust into a deep and turbulent sea. The fact is, this was Texas in the late l960’s. Although I had wanted to attend a college-preparatory high school, my advisor felt I would be better off going to a vocational school. My parents, in spite of their acknowledgement that I was gifted and capable, deferred to the counselor since they, my parents, could not navigate through the shoals of English. An unspoken atmosphere permeated society that people from the barrio were better off goaded into the future by benign agents acting on our behalf. Thus, I accepted my fate. Although I was on the “college trek”, I recall reading Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream in my senior English class, and it wasn’t until years later that I realized it wasn’t a play about a foolish donkey, but a metaphor about how love often deludes and eludes so many. At Technical, I never grasped calculus or physics, nor did I ever interact academically with the best of the college preparatory students from other high schools. Most of us were struggling with English, with citizenship, with self-validation. At graduation, we were appropriately attired in a white and green cap and gown, tassel to the right; no deviation to the norm was tolerated. Most of us simply accepted the realities of our lives with stoic resignation, or more tragic yet, with blind obliviousness. In spite of the reality that the late sixties ushered in a generation of malcontents and politically active young people, for the most part we accepted our reality. Only with time would we become conscientious warriors, gay and lesbian activists, feminist advocates as we rebelled against the constraints that bound us. Unfortunately, by then, our numbers had been culled by war, by AIDS, by poverty, and by the bitterness of life on the fringes. Nevertheless, some of us remained true to our zealous ideals in our attempts to forge a new world of inclusiveness. Speaking for myself, being resilient and tenacious, I burned the midnight oil and rolled up my sleeves and lived to tell my tale.

It goes without saying that I struggled, and continue to struggle, with my being gay after high school. I had no mentors nor role models to inspire me. I was weaned on misguided, homophobic values by ill-informed proseltyzers of morality. Even after I became an adult, I retained the shame of condemnation, feeling tainted, miserable, and lost. So much of our LGBTQ history has been a divine comedy as we journeyed into inner circles of hell. Too many have died from the ravages of AIDS; too many have committed suicide, often brought about by alcoholism and drug abuse. Too many have struggled to find a niche, disappearing into the shadows like the characters in John Rechy’s City of Night. So much has changed; so much remains to be done. Just last semester one of my students, a gifted 19-year-old man, committed suicide when he could not come to terms with his identity. Thus, we the survivors and the sages of our society, need to continue to provide direction, being that we have accrued a litany of survivors’ tales and remain standing nonetheless.

As I return from the journey of my youth, I recognize the timelessness of memories. The flickering images capture a moment in time that becomes my on-going narrative. The fact is that like Dorothy, Kansas or Texas or wherever will always be our foundations. In spite of Thomas Wolfe’s admonishment that we can’t go home again, we need to return if we are to recalibrate our navigating sextants. The journey into my green-and-white past reminds me that life must be lived without regret, since there is no point in wishing the pilgrimage had been different; it is what it is, but if I choose to do so, I can glean the knowledge that it has served me well. Therefore, though in retrospect I might have preferred a different map, the map I was offered was, in fact, a cartographer’s masterwork. Thus, guided by that blueprint, I look forward to the golden days that remain with the same fervor and curiosity as I did the green days now accomplished. Any regret is nothing more than a bowl of warm, curdled milk.

© 8 August 2016

About the Author

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming. Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

Vibrations of Time, by Carlos

A ghost abides in my house, although the word ghost is hardly the appropriate word to use, for I think both he and I prefer to use the word spirit. He is an inconspicuous energy that lingers around me like the aroma of mint tea on a frosty day or the taste of orange blossom honey on a warm croissant. I have only seen him once, a snippet of a shadow that appeared in my periphery vision and was gone like a summer beam of light. I was working in the garden and happened to look up at small window above the staircase, catching him as he spied down on me. He is a fine-featured, tall gentleman dressed in what looks like an Edwardian morning coat and silk ascot. And although I dismissed him as an overactive imagination borne perhaps from too many hours under the summer sun or from the expectation that a spirit should after all reside in a Victorian home, I have never, until now, spoken of him. I’ve given him the name John, and he seems most content that I should name him so.

This is not to say that John has always been a quiet energy, satisfied to waft through the air like the first sublime notes of Karl Jenkins’ Benedictus. When I first moved into our 1888 Queen Anne, she looked like a dollhouse that had been touched inappropriately by too many who had taken from her, but never loved her unconditionally. The windows were broken, and the rooms frigid. Her fine details were gone, ripped out and sold or simply discarded and replaced by the more modern contrivances of evolving tastes. As for her garden, only two century-old maples and two weathered apple trees remained, no doubt, an attempt by early homesteaders to tame the wild grasslands of a former time. Nevertheless, our attraction to each other was instantaneous, like two would-be lovers who meet on a quiet dance floor and see each other’s souls through the haze and shadowy darkness. Putting an offer, and finalizing the closing, within weeks our destinies were linked. On my first day in my proud, but sad, house, I sat on the floor and envisioned hopes and promises yet to be birthed. I sat in terror, pondering whether I would be worthy enough to respect her and restore her faded self-esteem. Upon moving in, I immediately hanged my treasured cuckoo clock upon a wall, taking great joy in calibrating the weights every week to enjoy the automaton’s hourly call. It became a symbol of my own nesting.

Often the vibrations between house and me were at odds and tenuous, much like a newly wedded couple in an arranged marriage. She was suspicious of my intentions; I remained dubious as to whether I could do right by her, whether I could be faithful to just one. The energy within the house was impudent, challenging me as though to undermine me and determine my reaction.  After the water pipes froze and water fountained throughout the first floor one frigid winter night, I repaired the damage and remained, proving to both us that I was not about to retreat in spite of our apprehensions. As I cleaned from the deluge and pulled up nasty, old carpeting, I connected with the past, discovering sheaves of 1920’s vintage newspapers, now soaked, that had been laid down by a former tenant to insulate the floors. Later, she tested my vows as when during a small dinner party, I shame-faced discovered I had served gritty sand in our soup bowls. Thinking I had been guilty of not washing the vegetables, I, to my dismay, ladled out a chunk of horsehair plaster from the ceiling that had unexpectedly fallen into the kettle. It was not long after that that John’s presences made itself known. One night something touched my toe as I lay in bed. I spent a few sleepless hours in a frigid room, not sure whether I was more frustrated with the blustery winds that tumbled and shrieked through the dark hallways or the unwarranted caress from the unknown. When I demolished the upstairs walls, since they were but cheap cardboard sheathing unceremoniously nailed down between rows of wood furring strips, giving the rooms a prison-like aura, John was angry, perhaps because he thought that like others before me, my intentions were to dismantle his world even further. I heard him stomping angrily upstairs with fury, convincing me I was about to be pummeled by a would-be intruder. However, when I ran upstairs to investigate, the sound ceased; he had retreated. Over the ensuing years, the energy in the house gradually changed to a live-and-let-live ambiance as I jacked up foundations, replaced floors and windows, brought the plumbing and electricity up to code, and strengthened the bones of the house. Eventually, chandeliers and fretwork, stained glass and tile, roses and violets and sweet woodruff gardens graced my home, mirroring her former self and solidifying my intentions to honor a promise made when I was young and naive. Years earlier, I had concluded that John did not care for the raucous sounds of my cuckoo clock since as long as the clock chimed, his presence lingered nearby; thus, I decided to put the clock in storage.  I suspect that in doing so, I finally banished him, for the energy in the house became peaceful and sedate, a true nest of repose. Yet, in truth, I missed his child-like antics, his protective aura that pushed away suitors who were not good enough for me, but welcomed those bathed in an evanescent light. Today, although he never reveals his presence and rarely leaves a calling card of his ethereal essence, I know he is still as close as my heart. Ever vigilant and circumspect, I know he watches protectively over the house, over my now husband and me. We felt his presence reaching out the night our Jonathan died as though reminding us that death is a return back home, with a promise of reuniting. I feel his presence as he keeps guard over me in the garden, trying to coax another poppy or hollyhock to reveal the scarlet garment encased within her burgeoning bud. I feel his presence when I am afraid of death and tired of living. Sometimes in the middle of the night, I walk downstairs and meditate, and although always unobtrusive, he waits nearby, shielding me from evil. Because I’ve come to understand his intentions as being altruistic and benign, I’ve decided to unpack the cuckoo clock and restore its warbling mechanic bird.  It is time to let him know he is not banished; it is time to restore him to his rightful place in our home.

Our home remains a work- in-progress, as well as a financial behemoth. More important, however, it is a haven, a reminder that past sunbeams continue to blaze and undulating rhythms continue to resonate, reminding me that I am but a traveler temporarily away from home. I rejoice that time’s vibrations echo in my life; I acknowledge energy’s immortality. I suspect that when I finally awaken from my slumber, John, whether he is real or simply an abstract, metaphysical self-deception, will serve as a reminder of the bewildering ripples of time. Thus, I conclude that oscillations of time and space ultimately act like concentric circles radiating from their source, the effect expanding outward until equilibrium is again restored.

© 23 May 2016 (Denver) 

About the Author 

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.”  In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter.  I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic.  Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming.  Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth.  My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun.  I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time.  My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands.  I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty.  I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

I'll Pretend, by Carlos

I’ll Pretend. Pretending is Safer Than Believing

A Response to “The Coddling of the American Mind” by Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt

September 2015 issue of The Atlantic

Words have always been a weapon that have cleaved into my soul. And although they embedded themselves securely within me like talons seeking out their prey, they have also resulted in cauterizing and defining.

Throughout my formative years, words sneered at me as they dropped like hot saliva from the lips of those who recognized in me what I did not yet recognize in myself. As a child, my uncle, lashing out at his own covert homosexuality or perhaps in a subconscious need to rescue me from the demons that fed upon him like maggots on carrion would refer me to as a maricón out of earshot of my parents. And, yes, I guess I was a maricón since I preferred practicing my violin, reading, and working the soil with my mother, to playing war games with neighborhood boys who smoked surreptitiously and smelled of stale urine. I guess I was a maricón since I enjoyed bathing with my mother’s heady, exotic soap and was more interested in learning words from the pages of my books than ripping them out to use as spit wads. In a burst of unrestrained anger one day, finding myself alone in the front garden, my uncle approached me, grabbed my testicles and with a pen knife he brandished, threatened to emasculated me, to castrate me, to shame me into manhood. Feeling violated, I lashed out angrily, and even though I was blinded by my tears, I managed to reach for rocks with which I drove him off, pelting him and yelling childish obscenities at him as he fled. We never spoke of it again, and he never touched me again, though the memory of his words and actions defined my childhood.

In high school, I was a natural target, studious, sensitive, and vulnerable. I was lonely, having no friends except for an occasion outsider like me. I preferred the company of men who visited weekly on our black-and-white Zenith, men such as the principled and compassionate Richard Chamberlain from Dr. Kildare, the brooding romantic-lead Joel Crothers from Dark Shadows, the masculine cigar-smoking John Astin from The Addams Family. Often, I would find safe niches at school simply to be alone or would slip away from the building during lunch and walk the streets free from judgmental eyes. At such times, I would soar away, always aware that soon enough the back-to-class bell would demand my return back to the realities that mocked at me with derision. I discovered that I did not like to company of other boys, for cruelties erupted more virulently at such gatherings. In my physical education classes, I was constantly subjected to words like joto and maricón and was always the last one chosen to participate in team activities but the first assaulted on the the field or taken down on the wresting mat by would-be assassins. Although I never missed a single day of high school, at 3:30 when classes were over, I ran toward home like a runner pursued by contempt. Needless to say, graduation became my reprieve, and I never looked back, never sought to reconnect with those years of imprisonment that further defined my childhood.

In college and in the U.S. Army during the Vietnam years, out of fear of discovery, I carefully hid my occulted secret, like a Hershey’s milk chocolate kiss hidden under a veneer of silvery foil. My grades suffered during my sophomore year at the University of Texas when I started to recognize that I might have homosexual longings. Although I spent many hours beseeching God to release me from the nightmares into which I was awakening, ironically I would walk home from the university, hoping that one day my knight-on-a white-charger would pull up and vanquish my fears, offering me the chalice containing a spirited distillation of self-love and acceptance. Unfortunately, my first tangible connection with a homosexual man was at a greasy spoon where I worked as a dishwasher when I was fifteen. Alone one night, the cook approached me with lust in his hand. Even though I longed to unravel the skein of curiosity, my fears compelled me instead to bolt out the door and never return. Nonetheless, I concluded erroneously, that the words directed against people like me by the cultural, political and religious pundits truly reflected a valid identity. I concluded homosexuals did, in fact, succumb to deviance, mental illness, and antisocial criminal tendencies. The words directed toward me became ingrained within me. They served to exclude me from mainstream society while simultaneously include me in the pathologies of negative stereotypes. Even in the army, I remained closeted in my self-hated. Being that I was company clerk, I once had to sit in an initial court martial investigation of two fellow soldiers who had been caught in a homosexual interlude. I sat at my desk dutifully taking in their testimony on my shorthand pad, which I was then expected to transcribe and submit as evidence of their crime. Although I maintained my military composure, I wanted to reach out to them and assure them they had a friend in the room, but words I heard thrust at them, homosexual, deviant, abnormal, aberration, sodomy ultimately made a coward out of me. No doubt, the transgressors, like me, feared the degradation of being classified as degenerates destined to trudge through life as neurotic, pitiable, psychologically damaged deviants of society. We recognized one word directed at us from the medical, psychiatric, and psychological field would result an an immediate and humiliating dishonorable discharge that would only serve to catapult us into further socially unacceptable isolation and self-recrimination. A few days later, I saw them dispiritedly walk away after their court martials, having been pilloried publicly by the stigmatizing actions of society. Once again, words defined my life.

I recognize that in spite of the power of words to burn like iodine on a raw wound, those words can also disinfect. Of course, the targeted victim can practice cognitive behavior therapy, thus minimizing distorted thinking and seeing the world more accurately. Of course, he can tell himself that The Buddha taught that our life is a creation of our mind. Of course, she can remind herself of Marcus Aurelius’ powerful words, “Life itself is but what you deem it.” However, it’s not that simple since even when a victim learns to practice mindfulness, the continued sting of envenomed words linger like burns inflicted by chemical terrorists. In my case, I was somewhat fortunate, but I suspect I was an anomaly. Throughout my life, words of derision have been directed at me whether because of my being gay or Latino or simply because I’m a ready target. When a large percent of ethnically diverse candidates, myself included, were hired to teach in Jefferson County Schools in 1980, only after the courts had recognized discriminatory hiring practices in the District and mandated changes, I frequently heard vitriolic words from my new teaching colleagues, as well as from students and their parents. Words like greaser, wetback, non-English qualified, spic, beaner, and the list goes on ad nauseam, vomited out and were quietly broomed into the closet. In 1986, I was recognized as one of the outstanding District teachers of the year. Of course, whispers swooped down like birds of prey that I had been nominated only because Jeffco sought to demonstrate political correctness. Although I agreed that I was meant to be a symbol of inclusiveness, I accepted the award, not only on my behalf, but on the behalf of the untold numbers of the past who had sacrificed for me. In addition, I recognized that in my own way, I offered a hand-hold to future generations. One facet that has consistently defined my struggles is that words have been the challenge that have nonetheless prompted me to action. Nevertheless, I allowed myself to believe, to pretend, that I could thrive within my carapace in spite of the tenderness of my lacerations. Unfortunately, words are harpoons that remain forever lodged in a fragile psyche. Although my wounds allowed me to become strong and resilient, I believe that if only my detractors had not directed misguided words at my still healing scars, I would not have been weighed down by fears of self-revelation. I might not have squandered so much energy attempting to prove myself, so much energy doubting my own abilities. As César Chávez said, “We draw our strength from the very despair in which we have been forced to live. We shall endure.” To that I add, but why should we have to endure such despair?

© January 2016 Denver

About the Author

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming. Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

Life Is Like Green Chili, Spicy but Delicious, by Carlos

La Vida Es Como El Chile Verde, Picante Pero Sabroso

Life is Like Green Chili, Spicy but Delicious

Me puede decir a que hora abren an santuario? I direct the question to an old man, wrinkles etched onto his affable face. He sits in the church courtyard quietly taking in the rays of the New Mexico summer morning like a raven perusing the world from afar. He looks up at me and replies, but I do not completely understand because the Spanish he uses resides in labyrinthine causeways of the past. I realize that though we are both conversing in the same mother tongue, the dynamics of phraseology, tonality and rhythm are traversed by centuries of experiences, of history, making communication between us difficult. My Spanish is the language of central Mexico, where the vowels lose strength while consonants are fully pronounced and the sing-song tonality of indigenous peoples is deemphasized. His is the language of our ancestors, forced upon the natives by well-intentioned but often brutal Old World friars; it is a marriage of Castilian conquistadores and Nahuatl poets, sequestered but nurtured over the centuries behind adobe walls and under Southwestern skies. I thank him for his kind, albeit incomprehensible, response, concluding that I am a time traveler caught up in the paradox of a fourth-dimensional arena. Rather than fleeing, as is my nature whenever disoriented by exotic, extrinsic ways, I prepare to drink from the chalice blessing me with an opportunity for new sensory delight. Little do I realize that as I prepare to unhinge myself from my bungee-cord concept of reality, I will be catapulted toward dormant realities. I continue on the high road from Santa Fe to Taos, a road that unlike the modern fast-paced interstate of the low road, is fraught with footsteps, wailings, ghosts of the past. Picaresque images materialize, worlds where straw is gold, where faith is genuine, where life and death are part of the bargain. And unlike mirages in the summer sun, these images remain as substantial as Paleolithic hand stencils.

Over the decades, my faith in organized religiosity has been shaken by the doxology of paint-by-the-numbers philosophies. I weep for conflicted gay folk who ultimately succeed in sacrificing themselves because of on-going wars between ingrained beliefs and self. I cringe at endemic violence and bigotry perpetrated in the name of God, at the narcissism of religious orthodoxy. Within the silent adobe walls of northern New Mexico, I am surrounded by hand-hewn cottonwood santos arrayed in home-spun cloth and weathered retablos graced in straw to imitate unattainable gold. The beatific looks on their faces look down at me with healing hope. Faith weaves its tendrils within me like morning glory vines awakened in the first glow of dawn. I may not understand the ways of people whose cultures have slumbered in a time cocoon, but I want to understand the faith that inspires them to recognize the voice of eternity in the rustling of the wind against the red willow branches. I want to understand what drives them to walk through the moonscapes of their deserts to reach their altars, what healing potions they drink from a curandera’s micaceous cup, what secret memories they subdue when in the midst of an outsider.

Continuing on the high road to Taos, a joyful whirlwind of warm air hovers unobtrusively around me. It hums melodiously as I stand in quiet meditation next to the mud-plastered exterior walls of village churches and ancient acequias. It reverently glides through the mishmash of grave markers at the village camposantos, crosses whose sun-bleached and splintered wood return to the secret occulted realm like the brooding bones enshrined beneath the earth. The light plays tricks upon me as I weave through the canyons and fingers of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. The landscape seems sublimely remote as though the ancestors watch and spiritual energy smiles. A light vertigo sensation arises within me as I walk among the fragrant chamiso, larches and piñones. I find myself humbled when I come across a procession of mourners. On their shoulders they hoist a simple pine box that serves as the eternal bedchamber for the deceased. They are dressed in the black weeds of grief, the women’s faces hidden by black rebozos and wisps of hair billowing in the breeze. It is so simple, so refined, so real. I want to stop and root myself into the depths of the sandy soil, yet I hesitate, for I find it eerily wondrous to walk in canyons breathing out the names of all that is immortal. Driving further, I note the super highway of the low road snaking through the desert below, I realize it is time to move on. Prior to my returning back to my world, I utter a silent prayer of gratitude. The journey on the high road from Santa Fe to Taos connected me not only to a part of history that is drying up like an uncorked inkwell in a ghost town schoolhouse, it connected me to myself.

Being gay has not always prepared me to embrace the diversity of life within my own community. I am aware of fortifications that isolate. Derision, rejection, and worst of all, reciprocating invisibility result in a segmented community. My journey into a world I thought existed only in shadows taught me to appreciate the diversity within my own family. I learned that though I and my brothers/sisters may fail to recognize each other, bridges constructed but abandoned long ago are still traversable. In a dream of unrestrained idealism, I invite all members of my community to break bread and drink wine with me, and if we are not too drunk by the end of our festivities, to dance like celebrants in unison even as the ticket taker validates our tickets. I’ve learned to rejoice that I am the son of a woman whose many breasts have nurtured legions of children. Through my brief foray into a peripheral world, I learn that life is a kitchen preparation in which ingredients, bitter chocolate, savory peanuts and sesame seeds, spicy mulatto, pasilla and ancho chilies, and pregnant raisins marry upon a volcanic stone altar, creating a mole ancient and wise, yet young and vibrant.  Whereas the end result is a sacred dance, the process of preparation is the victory. A 38-year-old Spanish poet, Federico Garcia Lorca, was murdered during the Spanish Civil War by the Fascist militia for his being gay. In one of his writings, he reached back to a friend who had taught him to smack his lips even as the sauce dribbled down his chin. Garcia Lorca wrote, “Not for a moment, beautiful aged Walt Whitman, have I failed to see your beard full of butterflies.  All we have are our hands and a hole in God’s earth”—Federico Garcia Lorca

© 28 Dec 2015  

About the Author  

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.” In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter. I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic. Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming. Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth. My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun. I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time. My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands. I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty. I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.

We Shall Never Know, by Carlos

A poet much wiser than I recognized that journeys never undertaken and roads never traversed, nonetheless have the power to burden. I find myself looking back over the decades, forever ambivalent about those uncharted journeys. And although I celebrate that I did take a less traveled road, which, in fact, made a difference, a wonderful difference, the shadowy vignettes of a past unlived on occasion haunt me like the dripping of a faucet on a silent night.

He and I never danced; we never touched; we never spoke of the drives and passions that might have lubricated our lives. It was a different time, a different place. It was a time when to unsheathe our souls to judgmental eyes could have thwarted careers, made futures bleak, and shattered lives like frost descending upon tender blades of green grass. And though our connection consisted of two twirl-a-cups gyrating around a circular orb, I have come to believe that had we lived in a freer world, a more inclusive one, he and I might have given light to secrets destined to remain forever occulted, held hands on blustery winter nights, and charted voyages that alas never sailed away. In retrospect he was my first infatuation, the first man with whom I dared to dream that somewhere, someplace we could make our peace. We could have been oblivious to a sanctimonious Brokeback Mountain world beset on sacrificing us, for no other reason than our souls quested after forbidden dreams. But we never danced; we never touched; we never found the courage to challenge the consequences of reaching out to thwart ingrained fears. Thus, we never transformed hope into possibilities.

We were so different. He was passionate about Ché Guevara and César Chávez, about the injustices of Chilean tyrants and brutish money changers. I was passionate about my intangible world. How often I would find myself walking alone, surrounded by the voices of poets and dreamers, philosophers and stargazers. While immersed in my rhymes and rhythms of far-off melodies, I would focus on the intricate cobwebbed anatomy of elm leaves, on the oceans mirrored within raindrops, on the starry convolution of heavens above. Thus, in those early years, we trekked in diametrically different worlds. We allowed our fears of the unknown, of ourselves, to silence what in retrospect I now know nestled within us. We could have, we should have, but we never did speak of our cryptic secrets, and time, like a shape-shifting cloud flitted out of our reach.

Over the years, I finished my studies. Over the years, I lost my innocence in foreign lands. I thought of him often, but I allowed myself to believe that the past was but an epitaph on crumbling sandstone. Years later, an act of serendipity became our swan’s song when upon my return home from distant shores, I prepared to root my life. Acknowledging my forays into the future, I celebrated among strangers at my favorite restaurant. As fate would have it, he was there too, alone, following a day of toiling in this world of the mundane. Instant recognition erupted in our eyes, and although we spoke so briefly about things so trivial, we never unshackled the chains that bound us. After all, the world still remained dangerous for men like us. Thus, what needed to be said remained forever fossilized within our respective hearts. Saying goodbye so long ago, I now recognize that he wanted to say more; I can only hope he knew I too longed to reach out, but instead with a quiet desperation I stifled my longings. Even as I walked away and turned to look at him, I could not break the insidious spell spun by those who had authority over us. And thus, we never danced; we never touched, we never let the sun break through the storm. We will never know what could have been. Suffice to say, although the road I took directed me away from him, I remain forever grateful that this traveler did, in spite of himself, step toward a wondrous journey. I can only hope his path was likewise emblazoned with innumerable constellations.

© 28 Dec 2015  

About the Author 

Cervantes wrote, “I know who I am and who I may choose to be.”  In spite of my constant quest to live up to this proposition, I often falter.  I am a man who has been defined as sensitive, intuitive, and altruistic, but I have also been defined as being too shy, too retrospective, too pragmatic.  Something I know to be true. I am a survivor, a contradictory balance of a realist and a dreamer, and on occasions, quite charming.  Nevertheless, I often ask Spirit to keep His arms around my shoulder and His hand over my mouth.  My heroes range from Henry David Thoreau to Sheldon Cooper, and I always have time to watch Big Bang Theory or Under the Tuscan Sun.  I am a pragmatic romantic and a consummate lover of ideas and words, nature and time.  My beloved husband and our three rambunctious cocker spaniels are the souls that populate my heart. I could spend the rest of my life restoring our Victorian home, planting tomatoes, and lying under coconut palms on tropical sands.  I believe in Spirit, and have zero tolerance for irresponsibility, victim’s mentalities, political and religious orthodoxy, and intentional cruelty.  I am always on the look-out for friends, people who find that life just doesn’t get any better than breaking bread together and finding humor in the world around us.