An Ideal Man

By Adonis Ramirez Parra

In a small town like El Sueño, Mexico, gay boys must lie to hide their truth. In despair, Armando is whisked away by his mother to cross the border and be reunited with his father, a Reagan migrant in America. The dream is quickly killed as violence claims his mother’s life on the streets of Gardens, California. Armando excels in his passion for soccer and catches the eyes of a coach from one of the preppy schools on the rich side of town, Shallow Creek. A soccer star at his school, Armando’s fortunes change when he meets Lalo, a boy from down the street exploring his female alter-ego, Miss Lola Divine. His secret can ruin his life, but Lalo is the only true love Armando has ever known. They are two gay teens in love in a world imposing a lie that betrays their truth.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Jan 8, 2021
• ISBN: 9781645365921

Adonis Ramirez Parra

An original Silicon Valley unicorn, Mexican-born, American-raised, SF Bay Area made in East Palo Alto and East Oakland, Adonis lives and writes in Tucson where he explores his voice in French, Spanish, English and AAVE.

Book preview

theirs.

Prologue

A hummingbird lives every second of their life hours away from succumbing to starvation. Every single second of their entire existence relies on the satisfaction of their one constant and eternal need for the nectar inside the deepest wells of flowers. They do not lust after the nectar of any passing flower, regardless of its beauty. They long for the flowers ornamented not with the colors and the petals that strike one’s gaze, but rather they seek the flower in possession of the right nectar to sustain them for life. The one that knows that without lending of itself to them would mean their heart would stop beating, their wings will stop flapping, and they will slowly seize the shores of never lasting. They look for the flower whose nectar procures the sweetest concoction for they are the only ones rich with the sustenance that they need to live. And they will kiss with their heart, expressing sheer love and gratitude, even the ugliest flower that yields such life juice. It hears them and opens itself to the hum and the kiss of the bird that lives because of it. More so than any other living being in existence, the hummingbird has evolved because of and according to their will’s sheer resignation to the pursuit of their heart’s desires. They are driven by their passion for it, their life depends upon it; if it ceased to exist, they will, too. They live because they seek it, and they seek because they live for it.

Kismet

In a town so small like El Sueño, tucked in the base of a valley with only one road in and out that goes along the steep rise and fall of the mountains, it is easy to believe something bigger, like God, is out there.

Nothing out of the ordinary ever happens in El Sueño. Like, the number of trees and where the shade will land at specific times of day is known. Who gets up at what time to do what thing. Which donkey hee-haws before the rest, followed by which rooster calls before the birds start chirping and flying, followed by whose truck is bouncing up and down the rocky dirt road, all before the sunrise. The truck’s rusty metal is heard clanking like it’s the road’s plaything long before being seen.

300 people live encircled by a mountain range, where one noise becomes an echo bouncing from one side to the next, bouncing back and forth until it finally reaches the peaks to fly and escape into the world beyond El Sueño’s land, to a land beyond.

In this Catholic town, a gay child discovers their true self when they lie about their true self. Boys grow up just knowing two boys kissing is a sin against life itself. Boys are supposed to like girls.

For Armando, though, the most magical day of his childhood was when he kissed Andreas.

Andreas was helping water his mother’s plants. He was so dainty carrying a half-full bucket of water, splashing back and forth with so much force he could have spilled it all. His hips swayed in a manner countering that of the water, and miraculously arrived with not a drop lost. His mom parted his hair every day and every day he looked like he was ready to go to school, even on that summer vacation day.

Armando asked him to play soccer after hours of spying on him behind a big boulder, up on the slope near the back of their house.

Andreas said no. He didn’t play soccer.

Armando kicked the soccer ball at him just for fun. It hit him flat in the chest. He fell to the ground with the air knocked out of him. He looked like he was dying. He even mouthed it, Me estoy muriendo.¹ He was turning purple as his eyes bulged, and Armando laughed at the faces he was making. Armando ran to him and got on his knees right by him.

When Andreas’s breath came to him, he pushed him off screaming high-pitched, and in between spurts of breaths he managed to squeeze in between his loud wails, he screamed, Ayyy! Quitate de mi pinche bruto!² – he took a deep breath – Casi me mataste. Ayyyy…³

Followed by a tirade of insults for the dirt in Armando’s nails, in the creases of his fingers and hands, for his dirty unkempt hair that was obviously a matted mess of sweat and dirt, for his ripped and torn jeans, and for the disgrace he was for being a brute.

Armando told him he was sorry and that he just really liked him. He wanted him to be his friend. If he didn’t like soccer, that was okay. He didn’t have to be into soccer to hang with him.

Armando asked him if he’s gone to see some of the remnants from the indigenous buried in the hills. He said he hadn’t. Armando told him he should, that he could take him. He said okay.

Armando kicked the soccer ball in front of him while they walked. He was right, Armando realized. He was a brute. Compared to Andreas, who sparkled brand-spankin’ new. Armando asked him if he knew what to do with a ball. He said no, and Armando said he could teach him.

Andreas asked him how good he was. Armando pointed out to the post and said he could make it go that whole distance in one kick. He didn’t believe him and said he wanted to see it, as Armando passed the ball over to him. Andreas kicked it back. Seeing the ball coming at him, Armando ran and kicked it, but harder than ever this time because Andreas was there, and he had to be impressed.

It flew straight above his head and shot past the post. Andreas yelped and ducked, but immediately turned, opening his eyes to see the ball past the post and still flying. He turned, and Armando took him in his arms. Armando kissed and Andreas kissed back, though, they were only five-year-old boys just being boys.

Armando’s godfather happened upon them at that very second. He separated Andreas from his godson. In his duty as the example of manhood, he kicked and pushed Andreas. He yelled, "Pinche maricón! Desgraciado!"⁴

At home, Armando’s godfather told his mother. He said that boy was corrupting Armando with his dainty sway. Armando’s mother laughed at his godfather who saw scandal in innocence at play. She pressed that there was nothing wrong with her little angel. She did reproach him, however, for being too young to kiss. He had to wait until he was older to kiss.

Boys are supposed to like girls! Armando’s godfather definitively said.

Are boys supposed to like girls? Armando asked his mother later that night.

She replied, En el mundo hay dos leyes. La ley de Dios y la ley del humano.⁵

God’s law is an absolute which pertains to all: love. Man’s law is fickle and either love or hate. An ideal man chooses love always. She hard pressed him to choose love always.

Eager to test his mom’s unconditional love Armando told her about the kiss of bliss. Words in a glow of red showed his mother her son’s passion for this mysterious kismet.

She reclined her head against the headboard of the bed they shared, giving her son space for his heart’s infatuation.

Armando flapped his arms and hands around, exaggerating Andreas’s natural effeminacy. She took his mocking flair for the infatuation hidden deep inside.

Andreas could not hide it as well as Armando felt he could. He did not let his mother in on this special insight, though. He thought better to keep it private. He did share with her, however, that Andreas looked like he shimmered like he had never been touched. It was all he could think, was to touch him.

Que fue cuando nos vieron y nos separaron,⁶ he said to his mother.

"Y, ¿sí lo besastes?"⁷

When Armando thought of telling his mother about the kiss, he never actually foresaw telling her of the kiss. The events and feelings which built up to it seemed more important. Confessing to his mother would mean admitting kissing Andreas was the most magical moment of his innocence – to say the least.

Sí,⁸ he said quickly, being coy as he deflected her smiling kisses and embrace.

Y porque no me dijistes, eh? Pinche mentiroso, she chastised with smiles. "Es pecado mentir, ¿me escuchas? No me importa quien beses, me importa que nunca me mientes."⁹

Pues, el beso solo fue esa sola vez. Ya no lo vuelvo hacer. ¡Que asco!¹⁰

No hables así, que de las cosas bonitas solo se dicen cosas bonitas. Un beso se paga con un beso,¹¹ she said, sweetly kissing Armando.

Un beso no siempre es bueno,¹² rebuked Armando.

Padre Nieblaclara,¹³ the Catholic town’s priest, was also kissing Armando. In giving life back to a thought he banished to death, Armando fought against the pull of the darkness. He drowned in the well of spoilt love, shunned to the outskirts of his mind. Dejected from his mother, she saw a darkness shroud her son from which she was powerless to fend off.

Cuando es malo un beso, mijo,¹⁴ his mother tearfully implored, but she already lost him to the silent suffering.

Mijo, háblame, ¿a qué te refieres?¹⁵ she implored, knowing from mother’s intuition her son was badly hurt.

---

¹ I’m dying

² Get off of me damn brute!

³ You almost killed me!

⁴ Damn faggot! Shameless!

⁵ In the world there are two laws. The law of God and the law of humanity.

⁶ Which was when they saw us and separated us.

⁷ And, did you kiss him?

⁸ Yes

⁹ Why didn’t you tell me? Dang liar. It’s a sin to lie, you hear me? I don’t care who you kiss, I do if you lie.

¹⁰ Well, the kiss was just that one time. I won’t do it again. How gross!

¹¹ Don’t speak like that, for good things are said of good things. A kiss is paid with a kiss.

¹² A kiss isn’t always good.

¹³ Father Clearfog

¹⁴ When is a kiss bad, my son?

¹⁵ My son, tell me, what are you talking about?

New Pyramids

Seeing his father depart to the North was his first bite into the apple of knowledge. His perfect Eden crumbled without the support of his father. Its strongest pillar gone, his home lost its glean of paradise.

Picking strawberries in Oxnard, apples through Washington, hitching rides on busses, trucks, and trailers, and bussing and dishwashing along the way for two years, promised the American Dream by Reagan.¹⁶ His father committed himself to the sacrifice, though, Armando only perceived the abandonment.

Tears from a belief that his father preferred an American life over him, were redeemed unbeknownst by his sun-stroked father every night, when he laid on his canvas mat with his steel fork, spoon, and mug belted on his waist, falling to sleep on a dirt ground with the intention of wiring his little money back home first thing in the morning.

An invitation from Padre Nieblaclara was given to Armando to seek consolation for his loneliness in Christ. He would teach Armando the prayers to recite for a belief in the miracles of God. Their recitation through good practice, he argued, will uplift Armando to believe a happy fate comes in mysterious ways through Him.

Armando felt fate already happily came when he had his first kiss with the most beautiful boy he had ever seen, who must have fallen from the sky, because he knew every person, the movements and the flows of change in El Sueño. Yet, Armando had never encountered that sweet boy until that first time.

They continued seeing each other in hiding during his last few weeks in Mexico before coming to the United States. They would walk the trails in the hills and hold hands. They would sit on rocks and talk about their favorite colors, how much math their mothers had already taught them. Armando told him they were leaving for the United States at the end of summer to start 1st grade. He said he was really sad Armando was leaving. When Armando looked over at him, Andreas looked back, and wailed, "No quiero que te vayas!"¹⁷

He didn’t know what else to do but start kissing him. So, they sat and kissed. He gave him in his kisses all the love he needed to wipe away the sorrow by giving him something to remember him and them by.

He saw Andreas for the girly boy he was, but he wasn’t girly either, because he could hang with him better than all the other boys. He was right for him, and he treated him as such, and they fell in love.

Padre Nieblaclara saw them sitting on a rock holding hands, embracing each other and kissing, while Andreas sniffled his sadness away.

Armando heard Padre Nieblaclara trekking toward them in the heavy-footed drum of his walk, which always gave him away. He heard his footsteps stop, and unlocked his lips, to open his eyes and first gaze into Andreas’s eyes. Before Andreas knew they were not alone, Padre Nieblaclara lunged at them, pushing them both to the ground. Andreas opened his eyes in fright and Armando kicked the priest on the shin as hard as he could. He picked up Andreas and holding his hand ran away into the cornfields. He took him to where he knew they could be safe. Where the bean fields joined the agave fields.

Me quiero regresar a casa,¹⁸ he said.

Armando asked if he was okay. He said he was really scared and wanted to go home. Armando told him he would protect him. He grabbed his hand and raising him to his feet he said, "Te quiero."¹⁹ Andreas said it back. Their run to safety had winded him, so Armando carried him piggy-back to his house, which he loved because he always remembered Andreas’s breath on his neck.

For Padre Nieblaclara this only aroused his jealousy. He saw Armando kissing back. When he kissed, Armando didn’t kiss back. He repulsed Armando, like a bag of food opened to reveal it has been colonized by maggots.

Padre Nieblaclara’s shoulders were small. His big top half misfit his twiggy legs. His back slouched and his feet pointed outward. His legs were stilts weakened by the heavy load they carried on top. He was the mutated result of a man’s head on a rotten apple stuck with toothpick legs. To focus his sight, he would wrinkle the tip of his nose upward so his nostrils joined his upper lip, ultimately forming a misshapen rat’s snout.

The first time Padre Nieblaclara kissed Armando, Armando recoiled from his fat face’s never-ending oily sweat. He was preparing for his first communion, which would be on the day he and his mother left Mexico for the U.S. His mom, with pleading tears, all in one long breath, said to the priest that since she did not know when they would be back to Mexico, and his dad wanted them to arrive in time for him to start first grade after Labor Day with all the other five-year-old Americans, it meant so much to her for him to do his first communion before they left, so God could keep a closer eye on him in the North. Otherwise, how would he know which morals and values to choose in his life going forward?

The priest, overwhelmed by his mother’s longwinded plea, was moved to say yes. He would allow him his first communion way before the conventional age if she allowed him to tutor him on the core values of the Church.

So, he took Armando out on walks. He told his mother he would teach him the values of the Church in the beautiful scenery of God’s fields in El Sueño. He would take his hand, though, they all knew he did not have to. Armando was old enough to roam El Sueño alone. He had been since he could walk, and every foothill, tree, donkey, cat, and chicken in El Sueño was familiar with him. He knew every neighbor on every street, so Padre Nieblaclara didn’t need to take his hand. He took his hand as a symbolic gesture to his mother that he was guiding him well on his path.

Once they passed all the trees at the base of the valley, marking the beginning of the climb up the hill, Padre Nieblaclara took a turn off the main trail. Off the trail and walking through dry and thorny trees and bushes, they arrived at a secluded and quiet creek at the mountain base. He took a seat on a rock and pulled Armando’s shirt to sit on his lap. He pulled him tight against his groin and rubbed himself against the back of his boyish knees.

The water falling down the rocky creek drowned Armando’s cries from the torment eventually suffered on him. If he wailed, the priest punched his head to keep from crying. He cried desperately alone, inside with his suffering. There was a breaking point where his body got numb to the harsh thrusting, and he consoled himself within by the light of his mind. Armando was splayed over a rock so big he felt he was a sacrifice to God. His tears flushed the innocence from his face, as Padre Nieblaclara petted him and said, Don’t cry, my son. God loves you.

He saw the first real-life image of a man in the town’s priest, fully naked and disgusting in his nudity. He poked deep inside and what was love to him was pain for Armando.

His mother was always right by the stove in the kitchen making beans when they returned. Tortillas cooled in a bowl wrapped in a cloth that she just finished making and ready to be reheated when needed. The tortillas, so tightly sealed they very slowly deflated, looked for a long time like little puffed-up pillows.

His mother invited Padre Nieblaclara to sit at the table for a plate of food. The salsa de tomatillo was made with small, red chiles his mother grew in big clay planter pots in the backyard. From the heat of the salsa, he would pant, sweat and cry, waving his hands at his face to cool down.

Armando never wanted him to stay, but he stayed, so Armando ate these chiles from the bowl whole in front of him because there was no other expression of his anger to quench his deep inner core. Armando knew he suffered an injustice being violated by this man, but as a bright child in a world ruled by embittered adults, he was still unlearned and voiceless.

His mother told him to slow down on the chiles, and handed him a fluffy tortilla, like a pillow of steam. Spreading sour cream and salt, he ate his taco with his plate of beans, still eating the spicy chiles. Padre Nieblaclara looked at him unable to believe he could take the heat. Not even his mom understood how he ate these spicy chiles plain, but he ate them like candy. She would find him after losing track of him as a baby, sitting next to the chile plant on the brick flower bed eating the chiles.

Daring to take a bite of the chile, Padre Nieblaclara reached for one and chomped off half. Immediately, he began panting from the spicy heat, curving his lower lip forward so his exhalation blew on his face, which fogged up his glasses. He used the tortillas as fans, but their hot air fanned more heat onto his face. His mother told him eating the tortillas would help cool the burn. As he finished a tortilla in two massive fast bites, one hand would grab another tortilla as he rushed to eat the other one still in his hand, biting his own fingers. He tore through the tortilla, dipping the tortilla into the beans so it got soggy, and slurped it loud into his mouth, running his tongue over his lips and popping them real loud.

He would tell Armando’s mother about the lessons, which he claimed were lessons on the church’s core values. Armando was so confused by what the priest told her that they did. Like, going over the Our Father, the proper way to pray a rosary, and the precise manner in which one refers to biblical passages with the book, the chapter and then the verses.

They did none of that, and Padre Nieblaclara would speak so convincingly of these things that Armando was almost convinced. He was the authority on sin, so it wasn’t like Armando could say the truth because it contradicted Padre’s truth, but he was the priest. Armando was cornered into keeping silent the inner hidden truth of his suffering.

Padre Nieblaclara knew he irritated Armando as he froze in sudden moments to stare right into his eyes. He knew Armando was thinking of telling his mother the second he left their doors. Armando could tell her about all of the gross things he did to him. Padre Nieblaclara focused his eyes into his furiously, making them tremble rapidly side to side as he lipped a silent shh.

The lunches when he stayed were eternal. His ferocious attack upon the plate, as he came up for breaths with his face upward to the ceiling, made Armando think of a safari scene on TV, where a lion ate