a little about me Alex, 2024-04-272024-04-28 Soy Alejandro… or C̄hạn chụ̄̀x x lĕk s̒. Or I’m Alex. People always ask what my ethnicity is because it seems to change a bit depending on my mood. I was born in Pennsylvania in the mountains the hard way, my parents were poor and we lived in a trailer in the woods that barely had heat. My dad is Puerto Rican, my mom, I’ve never met her that I can remember, see above, she was Thai or Vietnamese. One of those two. And when they had me I was their tenth try, they’d given up because the docs said my dad couldn’t make a baby. So they went the other direction, they did the artificial stuff and then they went home and did it. And mom was cheating on dad, the night before she’d just done it with a tourist from some Scandinavian country who’s now somewhere in the ground in Northeastern PA. Dad didn’t tell me this. He writes it all down in a journal he thinks I dunno about. Which is in my backpack now in case he decides to fuck with me and not leave me alone. They did it, and suddenly she weren’t feeling so good. The closest hospital was Scranton and I guess they weren’t so good, because she died on the ambulance over and they never got her back. Some kids in my situation would say they wish they could meet their mother. I’m not one of those kids. My only family since I was six or seven has been Matt and Dyl. That’s all the family I’ve ever needed, well, okay that’s also more complicated. Mom died, dad had a baby and the one time they’d had a dog mom went “away for a week” which we can guess what that was, I think she was tricking for money because dad couldn’t keep a job due to the alc, anyways, he forgot to feed the dog and it died. Now he’s got me, and if a dog’s work, little Alex was way worse. I got jaundice right away, then pneumonia, and this time the hospital actually saved me. I can’t hear so great outta my left ear, though, and docs have said all my life my BP is a little on the low side of comfortable. Dad did what he always did, he couldn’t go to his own “parents,” okay he was adopted so not real family especially when they kicked him out at thirteen for stealing the rent money to score, he took me to my uncle and dropped me off. That was in Camden, NJ. I’ve never met any of my other “family,” Uncle Diego is it and he was super good to me. That was my childhood. Diego made sure I never wanted for anything, and I made sure I never asked too much. My old man would come and go, never staying. The time between visits kept getting longer. I was in fifth grade and not doing so good in school. I couldn’t focus for shit, and I was nervous talking to any of the other kids. And they weren’t nice to me. That’s when I met Matt. I instantly got along with him and something clicked in my head that okay, I’m not like other boys and I guess he wasn’t, either. We’d hold hands like the other boys did with their steadies and for a few weeks everyone just looked at us weird. But we were like, fuck them, it’s our lives. He might talk about himself on here, idk, he was born in Mass and grew up first in Vermont and there were entire summers and vacations where he’d just kidnap me and take me to his family up there. Diego was fine with that. He always trusted me. There was the first time the other kids got mean in sixth. I’m short but I can take a beating, I used to skateboard with kids six years older than me just to prove I could. Until I sailed off a bridge, bounced off a rock, and went in a river that’s so toxic it catches fire sometimes. I said I was fine but the instant I got home Diego took me to the hospital and I’d messed myself up real bad, like as in no skateboarding anymore bad, no skiing. I’m not supposed to have CBD because of my age, but that’s the only thing that stops it from hurting all over. Anyways we got a big snow in early January in sixth and one of the worst asshole kids saw me and Matt holding hands, sitting outside on the swings enjoying the snow, we both love snow, and he just comes right over and wallops me. Like no cap he hit me so hard I flew off and landed like a foot away, seeing stars. Matt tried to stop him but got tossed. Rod’s got me on the ground and my back is killing me cos of the accident, he’s about to punch me, then he suddenly disappears and I hear screaming. That’s when I met Dyl and Lucas. They took him out, bigtime, smashing his head into the swings so hard the entire thing tipped over, Dyl backed off when he saw Rod couldn’t fight back anymore, but Lucas, crazy Lucas, wasn’t gonna. I’d crushed on Lucas since fifth and Matt was cool with that because he did, too. Super tall for our age, skinny, but built, like he supposedly swam the lake every week three times no matter the weather and that was like two miles across. I remember Dyl trying to stop him and Lucas just said “dude, run away, you got no part in what’s gonna happen next.” So Dyl ran to me and I heard lots of yelling, the SRO, three teachers, both coaches, and two kids finally got Lucas pinned. That was the first time I saw someone die in front of me. The EMTs tried, but they couldn’t get any life into Rod. Everyone was freaking out and suddenly Lucas got loose and grabbed the SRO’s gun. He said something about going to see his brother. That was the second time I saw someone die in front of me. It went all over me and everyone. I’d later find out that Rod tormented Lucas’ older brother so bad he did unalivent. Dyl picked me up, Matt ran over to join us, and we went to my house because I had the biggest shower. Diego was shocked to see us come in, covered in blood, other stuff, my body beat to shit. But we didn’t give him time to ask questions, just all of us headed to the shower, jumped in, and that was the first time for all of us. It seemed like the only good thing to do that would make us feel better, yeah, we went all the way with each other until the hot water ran out. And that was sorta when I figured out it’s cool to love more than one boy at once. Dyl and Matt were really getting into each other so I told them to go to my room and play, I had to talk to Diego. He’d set clothes for all of us outside the bathroom and a note that said “we can talk when you’re ready, mijo” and I was ready. Even though the noises from my bedroom made me want to go in there, I was pretty sure it’d be going for a while and I owed it to Diego. One of our things was I always made sure to get up for school early enough to have coffee with him. He told stories, not sure how many were real or just exaggerated, I guess when he was young he’d worked on a boat doing whatever it is they give kids to do on boats. Saw the world. And I was jealous of that because I was pretty sure at this rate I’d be lucky to get to Philly much less further than Vermont with Matt. Diego was reading a book in the kitchen so I asked “¿Puedo hacer el café?” and he smiled and nodded. I’d seen him do it a bunch, all the other kids’ houses I’d been to had some form of coffeemaker that made nasty weak coffee. I got a pan of water on the stove, ground up the Mexican-roasted beans, and dumped probably a lot more than I should have in the steel cylinder. He stood up, surveyed the situation, and said “Oye, coño” and laughed. He hugged me and played with my hair which back in sixth I kept dying blond. I do that sometimes now, but I mostly keep it black or purple because that’s my favorite color. Ten minutes later it’s ready and I carefully pour us coffee so strong it would take the paint off a battleship. But I always do mine with extra cream, Diego likes his black, poor guy. He takes one sip, winces, goes “puta madre!” and hops up to grab something in the back room where I’m not supposed to go. He comes back and it’s tequila, not the cheap shit I’m guessing because the bottle looks like it was designed by AI, it’s got a skull face melted into the glass and the label is handwritten. Okay, this weren’t my first time with alc in case people are flocking to judge, I got drunk on two beers when I was six with a friend I had back then, I’m not ready to talk about him yet. Diego expects me to sip this super premium tequila but I just downed the shot and dumped some in my coffee. This shit’s definitely stronger than beer but I really love it. Maybe I am Mexican? And I say, well I try in Spanish because I’m not that good at it yet, stumbling over everything before I manage to just say it the worst way as “soy maricón” and he winced again. “Mijo, I knew from the day you were here,” he says, “yo tambien.” I needed another shot after that. Then to avoid the subject altogether I just spilled about what had happened. Diego held me and played with my hair and maybe some of you think that’s creepy, but he’s not like blood, and he’s also more like a friend than anything, so it was cool even if the hardon I got was pretty awkward to ignore. And he wasn’t pushing me to say anything else but I had to ask. “Mi padre…uhm a va volver, I mean no va, verdad?” “Lo dudo.” I didn’t get that so he said in English “I don’t think so” and unfortunately he was wrong. I’ll just fast-forward the rest. Me, Matt and Dyl pretty much made our own family, slept together two or all of us most nights, Diego was fine with that, Dyl’s parents not so much. Diego got sick in fall of seventh grade and it was bad, and those kids didn’t run away, they both helped because it was super bad, pretty obvious he was dying on us and I’m scared asf because what happens to me if he does? There was literally one day a week where me, Dyl and Matt had too much on our plate to be together, and that was the day I got home from school and found Diego on the floor. I dropped my bookbag, called 911, then tried to do the compressions stuff like I’d seen on TV. I got him breathing and sitting up, tried to give him water, but he’d only take that with a gulp of that tequila which I needed too because I was crying so hard and shaking. The EMTs came, I stole a huge gulp, and texted Matt and Dyl I was on the way to the hospital please come ASAP. Matt’s mom was the one who showed first, she had his phone because he got himself grounded. But she’d called the coach to tell him to yank Matt out of practice immediately and get him here. There’s really fucking nothing worse as a kid than sitting in a super uncomfortable chair in a hospital waiting to see if the person who takes care of you will make it. I was only in jeans and a t-shirt and it was freezing, and the nurses were awesome, they’d bring me warm blankies almost as nice as mine at home every half hour or so. I tried to sleep but it was too loud, then some guy came in who thought he was an alien and threw himself against the walls to make it look like the ten security guards had beat him up. The real cops showed and I pulled one of them aside to let him know the guards didn’t touch the guy, they just got all the other people to the other side of the room and made sure he wouldn’t get past them. He thanked me and stood up and I pulled him back down. I asked him if he could sit with me and explained the situation as best as I could though I’m not sure I made much sense because I was slightly drunk and crying my eyes out. He looked at me, gave me a hug, and said he’d see if he could. There were some words between him and his partner but alien guy had finally calmed down so the cop came and sat with me until Matt’s mom got there. He held me and let me cry. Then she showed up, he gave me his card, he knows who he is so I won’t name him. Never let acts of kindness slip out of your fingers. I owe that man a lot. Not just for this time, maybe later I’ll talk about it. Matt’s mom showed and two minutes later so did Dyl’s which shocked me, they had another woman with them who I found out was an attorney. I didn’t really understand it but the long and short of it was if Diego didn’t make it, both of them would step in to make sure I stayed with one of them. Matt’s mom went to get me food from the Chick-fil-A down the street since I hadn’t eaten in hours, and I was sitting next to Dyl’s mom. “I thought you weren’t cool with me and Dyl and Matt,” I whispered. She sighed and hugged me and said I was totally reading that wrong. It was more about her wanting Dyl to do better in school and not get distracted, so I said yeah I knew he totally spaced a lot but lots of times when it was just me and him I worked with him to help him learn to focus. Which is true, Dyl’s so smart he lost me trying to do homework, I think he was just bored at school a lot. I got four bites into my Chick-fil-a sandwich and had a mouth stuffed full of waffle fries when the doc came out and shook his head. The moms managed to stop me from puking it all up. That was when Dyl and Matt showed up. And I thanked the moms but I really just wanted to go home, and Matt’s the persuader of us, somehow not even ten minutes later we’re all in my bed, not the moms, just me Matt, Dyl, and I slept like twenty hours but I’m pretty sure the whole time I was never alone, one or both of them was in bed with me, holding me. And okay, I should explain some stuff here, we’re all pretty retro boys. We’ve watched Stand by Me together like more times than I can count, and another movie, Good Will Hunting, well, that kinda hit different because Robin Williams has the line about not understanding loss until you’ve loved someone more than you love yourself, and really that was how it was not just with Diego but Dyl and Matt and I’m sure they felt the same because my bed turned into puddles when he said that. We pooled the cash together to pay the rent with help from the moms, all of us got jobs at Marty’s, he was a friend and paid us official wages but passed us cash extra. There was a whole case going at DCF but the social worker assigned only came by once. We kept Diego’s house super clean on our own, yeah the moms offered to help but we said no thanks, it was our job. The lady took a look around, saw how we were, and said something like “I can see you’re fine, you’ve got food in the fridge, a place to stay, so I’m not gonna fast track this one if that’s okay with you.” Six months later a different lady surprised us on a Saturday at dinner, okay, we usually didn’t wear clothes just kept the heat up so we scrambled to get them on, she wanted to check in and ended up getting my grandma’s chicken mole. I’ve never met the woman but that’s a damned good recipe I spent all day making for Matt’s birthday. Dyl tried to help but okay we’re lucky there weren’t fingers in the meal, he just biked to the Mexican store to get ingredients three times. I’d only tried it once before, it was a disaster that neither me nor Diego could eat. But this time it came out awesome, like maybe the best fucking meal I’ve ever had. The DCF lady seemed to be having a life-changing experience. We got done with that and I’d made tiramisu which got her eyebrows up because that had alcohol in it, but she ate it and it was good but it sounded like she was gonna cum over it. And then shit hit the fan. “Your father has filed for custody, and the court granted it. He’s in Trenton, and he’ll be here in a few hours. I’m here to make sure that re-introduction goes smoothly. The conditions on him are sobriety and keeping you living in this home, which your uncle left to you in his will, but until you’re eighteen, New Jersey won’t grant. It’s just a few more years, Alejandro, and I took the liberty of talking to a real estate agent. With prices as they are now, this house is worth at least $350,000.” I’m like “but this is my house, right?” and she’s like “technically” and yeah things went downhill fast from there. I got Matt and Dyl to distract her because the main thing I wanted was to make sure the old man just stayed at his end of the house like roommate he basically was, and I gulped down some of that awesome tequila. I hadn’t seen the old man in two years. I was fourteen or fifteen then, so like that was a huge part of my life and what memories I did have of living with him were awful. And I’d spilled all of what that exactly was in the documents to the court, the getting in my bed, all of it, but now I had to live with him. Like I said I’m short. We kinda decided with Dyl’s mom he was moving in that night to help protect me, she was bringing all his stuff over and we were doing the makeover of my room way sooner than we planned to but she got us a Lowe’s card and Home Depot card. Dyl’s uncle is a contractor who was gonna come by Wednesday to help us plan. But then I’m still stuck with someone in my house I don’t want. Maybe I shoulda done it different, I was up and angry the instant the old man showed and he wanted to fix things but it was way too late. I’m not a difficult kid, Diego pretty much rarely had to ask me to do something like take out the trash which sucked until I started just buying my own bags that wouldn’t break, I did all our laundry because he was pretty useless at that and I didn’t mind, dishes, fuck, I can’t stand a dish in the sink so those got washed instantly. Now I gotta deal with a junkie alcoholic who isn’t gonna want rules because somehow his sperm made me happen, well that’s up for debate, it kinda seems like mom tricked enough that was a sort of hot smelly blender of sperm that popped into the egg and made little Alejandro. He tried to get in with me that first night but Dyl was there and he never tried again, Dyl beat the shit outta him since even at fifteen he was a good six inches taller and had twenty pounds on the old man, and we’d been smashing tequila all Sunday, turns out I can follow another recipe from a person I’ve never met for margaritas and quesadillas. Me and Dyl ate like kings, Matt came by, we fed him and gave him drinks, and he was staying over too, we were all sauced by the point there was any food. The old man wanted some and Matt made a PBJ and threw it at him. The next day Dyl and Matt had to do stuff so I was alone and I tried speaking to my old man like I did Diego, Spanish, and he didn’t understand a word. So I wasn’t totally honest in my opening post because I didn’t want it to seem this bad. Me and the old man were fighting nonstop and obviously Dyl and Matt didn’t want to be around that, Dyl’s like “you know I did everything I could for you but I can’t live here anymore, just solve it” and Matt just stopped coming around toward end of eighth. We’d still hook up, have sex, but usually like in the janitor closet at school or the woods. But he was trying to be normal so he got a girlfriend and she didn’t like me, got the cops on me for providing alc but Dyl warned me before so I hid everything. Matt found out, he canceled her, apologized, but shit was already way far down the road at that point. I’d been calling the moms to intervene because my old man wasn’t staying sober and without Dyl around I’d just learned to relax and let it be over fast. Everyone was sick of dealing with me and the old man. This is going into ninth/tenth. We really didn’t speak for the entire tenth and finally I pulled them aside and Matt has family in Vermont, Dyl and me have been up there, I said I think I’m really done with New Jersey so let’s just go. And pointed out that okay even when all of us were like kids, thirteen, fourteen, we ran the house fine, nothing went wrong. And they’re like “yeah,” we expected the moms to push back but they were like, okay, when you all were together things were good, now it’s a fucking mess, sorry for cursing, but if the old man hadn’t even re-appeared our lives would all be way better. Matt and Dyl went on homeschool the next day, I was already on it because, okay this is tough for me to say, docs say I’m on the spectrum. Like with Matt and Dyl, I can totally feel comfortable, I feel their emotions way too strong, but they’re used to that. Other kids I just stay away from. That’s when we got the plan together. We all got jobs and we all got permits, and I got Diego’s ancient Ford Bronco which I painted with house paint purple when I was like eleven because he was complaining about how a white car in NJ is a bad idea. He sure asf chewed me out for that but it looks decent. Dyl’s mom has a Prius lined up and okay we’re gay but fuck that. Matt’s mom, I mean yeah she got religion and that’s made things complicated but she cares about her kid so us getting back together made her happy. She hated that harpy anyways. We called both DCF ladies and let’s just say there’s no visits coming up. Matt got his brother’s old VW Golf, and we just took 95 north then 87 and dipped into Vermont just past Albany. We’re cold asf but things are normal. Our normal. And we’re in the middle of nowhere but word got out on social there’s a safe place for gay kids. One state I guess made it illegal to watch anything gay, there’s like a dozen southern states where it really sucks, we’re trying to make it good here. Matt’s grandpa wasn’t happy with it until we explaIned it, now he’s gone all militant. Matt’s step-uncle in the sheriff and he was on board right away, one of his step-aunts in a psych doc in Montpelier and she said she’d come out twice a week if she can, but last time she kinda didn’t want to leave. We’re making this work we just weren’t expecting younger teenagers to come and no way we’re gonna turn them away. Just we’re running out of room, and me and Matt know a much bigger place but no idea if it’s still even standing. Us older kids are taking care of the young ones. I really never had to do that before, okay I did babysit one once and slept twelve hours after, but they’ve got all the best spaces and we make sure there’s stuff for them to do. Like I said, Dyl’s super smart and he’s actually doing classes for the kids. Me and him are both into WW2 history, and these kids were like fourteen or so, I sat in and he put on the movie “Come and See.” If you don’t know it, it’s a Soviet movie about WW2 that basically leaves zero to the imagination. I was shook like five minutes in, no cap, bro, that movie hit and then we all talked about it. One of the kids, okay I think his name’s Trent, he’s like thirteen or fourteen, trans boy from some Southern state, he had pics in his bag from his great-grandparents who got put in KZs, and now it’s hitting me just reading the news this country ain’t safe for people like us, we gotta figure out how to make this place bigger. I’m a sign off for a bit now. I’ve got to write about what happened the other day. But, okay, trans boys are boys, trans girls are girls. Uncategorized