Date: Thu, 11 Aug 2005 11:48:19 -0700 (PDT)
From: worldblows@yahoo.com
Subject: Don't Dig Me Any Deeper- Exploring Home Part One

Don't Dig Me Any Deeper

A novel by
lopez  sands
January 1998


EXPLORING HOME:

On my drive back into the city, U-haul attached, boxes packed, it just
seems all to be unreal, coming home again.  Coming back to Chicago, in
March, one of the coldest months of March I can ever remember.  The city
seems to be stuck under a thousand blankets of unwanted cold and plenty of
snow.  The people I passed, emerging from some awkward form of hibernation.
I never thought I would ever be doing this, moving back to the city, which
has taken so much from me.  Chicago at one time was like a torturous dream
that I thought would never end.  The failures with my parents, the failures
with love drove my mind into a cloudy haze.  If I had not moved away, the
downward spiral I was on would have sent me six feet under.  Moving to
Atlanta wasn't my brightest idea but it worked out well.  I has been doing
exactly what I wanted, writing, learning so much about myself, putting
behind the misery of unacceptance and learning to love myself, something
few people accomplish in a life time. Now all I could feel is a sense of
lost, betrayal, and anger over so much.

I begin working free lance for various papers when I arrive in Atlanta over
eleven years ago.  After working my ass off around town, the Atlanta
Constitutional finally gave me a break, eventually hiring me on full time.
Now here I am returning to the windy city to try to begin my life all over
again.  I thought I would never have to return here.  I never though I
would have to start my life over.  Sure I had my ups and downs but I was so
happy.  Aries make me so happy.  No I don't set my happiness upon his back
but he was an essential part of my life.  A great part of my life has been
taken away with a whisper, a sound and the sight of red.  Maybe I coming
back because; I have to run away.  Maybe I wanted to put to rest the ghosts
of my past, so that I could live with my present pain.  Or maybe I was
running away from the memories of the south into someplace that is
familiar.  Who knows, I sure don?t all I know is that things are just
working out this way.

 I met my heart in Atlanta.  That's what I would remember most about that
city and the fact it is now becoming a place where you could see so many
beautiful black gay men, but they still are just as lost as any other black
same gender loving man, in any other city.  I remember the day I met Aries
Kelly, it is so clear. For me, everyday seems like yesterday.  Every memory
of him seems to just have happened.  It is like a constant replay in my
mind.  The first day we met, I was working on a story about a serial
killer, which has been targeting the black gay community of Atlanta.  The
national press has ignored it.  I had a feeling that the black community
was doing the same.  I approached my future boss, Bill, at the Atlanta
Constitutional about doing a free lance story of articles that explored
death of so many young black men in the city.  He says it was a waste of
time.  He told me young black men died in this city everyday, and he was
right.  This was nothing new but this particular string of deaths left a
bad taste in my mouth.  I felt it was worth a look.  Luckily, after several
conversations and a look at my previous work, Bill, thought I was worth a
few of weeks of investigating.

 I wanted to talk to some of the leaders in the community, so I called one
of the service centers; I arranged to do an interview with Aries.  He
worked for one of the gay men health projects, UNITY, which is in the heart
of the city.  When I saw him, I know that I was in trouble.  He wasn't the
ebony poster boy but his smile did something to the inside of me.  It stole
something from me.  He was the most beautiful man I have ever laid eyes on.
He is just so, so.  Words can hardly describe him, but I guess they'll do.
Tall, looking up at him from my five ten frame, I almost forgot why I was
there.  Slender, not skinny but toned baldheaded and all.  The graze of
hair on his face was place every so nicely, chiseled jaw, perfectly
intertwined with his full lips.  He has on shades the first time I saw him.
I remember wondering what his eyes look like.  Upon seeing his thin eyes
when he removed those sunglasses, that widens when he smiled or laughed, my
heart almost stopped.  A deep shade of brown that made me thinks I was a
goner from the very beginning.  It is a face that you might see many times
but every time you look at it again, you would discover something new,
something fascinating, and something memorable.  He has such a sexy sultry
laugh, which echoed throughout the room, and into my soul.

After we finished our interview I thought that would be the last time I saw
him but a few days later, when the first article comes out, he called me at
the office and asked me if he could buy me dinner, to thank me for the
interview.  I tried to get out of going, even though I wanted so badly to
have dinner with him.  He frightened me.  Somewhere inside my soul, I knew
that the person God planned for me rested in his body.  Of course he
wouldn't take no for an answer, but then I never did quite say no.  I don't
think I ever could.  He made me laugh and I hadn't done that in so very
long.  I was always so damn serious.  All I have done since I arrive in
Atlanta is throw myself into work, trying to prove to myself I have what it
took but most of all trying to disapprove my father, when he says my life
would a mount to nothing.  I have been in Atlanta almost a year and my only
friends are my VCR and my CD player.  With friends like Lena and Billie to
keep you company, you hardly noticed that you're spending cold days at work
and even colder and lonelier nights alone in bed. My fridge was filled with
carrots, crackers, and two bottles of red wine, some pancake mix, syrup and
three week old sour milk.  And my life was filled with even less.  You can
take your work to bed but it still doesn't keep you warm.  Until Aries I
just pretended that it was enough to satisfy me.  In college I spent so
much time in pursuit of warm bodies that, I decided to figure out for
myself who I was.  Until I realized who that was, I don't think I was any
good for anyone else.

At dinner we talked and he told me about growing up in Atlanta and I told
him about Chicago, and how I spent years trying to please my parents.  Our
lives haven?t been that different.  Well at least it wasn't that different
in the early years.  Aries was never afraid of looking for love, I, on the
other hand, thought love was just some sad excuse make up by greeting card
companies to get paid.  Maybe I always believed that I wasn't really
capable of loving anyone.  Aries was like an open book.  At that time, I
could never be that way.  It's not that I was ever afraid of who I found
inside me, no, I never hide that, that's what cost me my relationship with
my parents.  I am a very private person.  I learned the only way to protect
yourself, was if you keep your heart locked away, securely.  Aries on the
other hand, loved the search because "it?s the journey", he use to say,
"that makes love worth keeping."  I still wasn't buying his little speech
and the more he tugged at my heart that night, the more I pulled away.  He
looked in my eyes and says,
	"What good is a heart if it's alone"?  I was hooked and for almost
ten years, we are inseparable.  He's gone now, and I need to get away.  I
need a change.  My heart has been smashed into a million little pieces and
each piece just reminded me of the good times.  So I?m coming home
again. When people tell you can never go home again, it's not the place
they are referring to, it's the feelings.

As I drove up to my apartment, my brother Michael sits on the porch,
waiting for me.  He looks up when he sees the car tires stop.  Michael
smiles. He was still the egghead he has always been.  He has always
supported me in every aspect of my life.  The look in his eyes makes this a
lot easier.  They still carried those pouches underneath them and when he
smiles he has those wrinkles right above his nose and around his mouth.
His chin jostled out which such force, highlighting his strength.  I am so
happy to see him.  He never lets me down.  He is my protector. He stills
stands taller then the heavens, at least to me.  He has never been too hung
up on his body, probably because no matter what he ate, it never makes him
any less attractive.  I on the other hand, have to use the gym on regular
bases.  No, Michael was never a small boy.  He just happens to be part of
the lucky selection of people who managed a gym body without the gym.
Michael is thick and firm.  He has no stomach but lots of tone.  He has a
larger head then anyone else in our family.  He looks like my father when
he was a boy.  From that oversized nose, to that large forehead that is
hidden mostly in part, because of the hair he still maintained.  Michael
walks up to me, I could see his breath as he make his way closer, his
oversized black Parker covers his shivering body.
	 "Well it?s about damn time you showed up, I thought you got lost,"
he says.
	Michael it's good to see you too.
	"I'm sorry I can?t get to Aries funeral"
	I know you would have if you could.
	"Well, yeah.  Listen Kim and I fixed the place up with the things
you shipped"
	How is that beautiful wife of yours?
	"Just fine, she's just fine."  Michael married a fine lady and it
is the last time I have seen my parents.  I wanted to ask him how they are
but those damn pride swells up too quick for me to allow myself to even
question how they are.  As Michael and I enter the townhouse, I look around
at the wonderful job, I'm sure Kim did alone.  It feels good to be at home,
or at least a place that looks familiar.  I walk around, as if I am in a
stranger's apartment and he just happen to can similar taste.  The painting
over the fireplace, two African soldiers, holding each other up in battle,
Aries has brought for me on our first anniversary.  Tears begin to drip
slowly from my eyes, before I can even wipe them away, Michael sees them.
He doesn't say a word, he just reaches his arms around me and holds me
closely to him, and this is the first time that I feel safe enough to break
down, to cry.  I weep.

When I wake up it is eleven at night and I check to make sure all the doors
are locked and then I begin to unpack and put away a few things and move
some things around.  I put on some Nina Simone and pour myself a glass of
red wine and walk around the house.  I pull out the photo album of what
seem to be someone else life.  It is hard to imagine living without Aries.
It has been one year three months and four days since his death but time
hasn't been my friend; it has only kept me in a vacuum of sadness.  The
house is still, so quiet and the voice of Nina can't change that.  A person
never understands emptiness, until your life is filled with hopes dreams
and love, and then it's all taken a way from you.  Then emptiness feels so
heavy that all the strength you have can never ever lift the loneliness off
of your chest.  No one can understand that.  I once heard someone say that
it's harder to see a person you love and know you can never be with them,
and then it is to know, you can never see them because at least you realize
it isn't their choice. No, it's definitely harder to know that you can
never hear their voice, you can never fell their touch or feel your heart
come alive when they smile.  To realize that love will never be waiting for
you at home after the world has beaten you up, no that is the worst sadness
of all because it's one you can never change.  Even in sleep I can't escape
my emptiness.

Kim and Michael stop by the next morning waking me from my sleep.  Here I
am on the couch holding this picture of Aries, when Kim shakes me and tells
me to get my ass up and give her some love.  She is so sweet.  My brother
has kisses a lot of women to find her.  He always says he would know when
he can found the one and I guess Kim is the one.  She stands smiling at me
from her five foot five frame, dressed in a plain white dress that buttons
down the front.  She has the knack for making the simplest outfit look like
it has been make by the hottest designer.  Her bug eyes are lit with love,
her nose and mouth matching her frame in size and beauty.  She isn't the
type of beauty that has been a magazine favorite but in ways she is even
more beautiful.  Her hair dreaded but in a ponytail with her black strapped
sandals attached to her legs that seem longer then they actually are.  Even
the dark patch that covers her knees only adds to her appeal.  When I first
met Kim on their wedding day, what caught my attention most, are her hands,
they are so neat.  Her fingers long and her nails fell just an inch from
her the tips of her fingers.  Kim is a lady. There I stand, not really
knowing her but somehow I know her well, I feel her.  This is the woman
that I use to talk to for hours over the phone.  Avoiding coming to Chicago
unless it is absolutely necessary, like their wedding, we developed our
relationship, through the telephone, Christmas cards and pictures.

They eventually make a couple of trips to Atlanta, to get to know Aries.  I
think Michael has his doubts about Aries but Kim was always his biggest
supporter.  Michael felt Aries high profile life put me in jeopardy, even
though he knew I wasn't hiding a thing.  Kim told him she thought we
worked.  She even joked that if Aries straight, I would have some
competition. Michael comes around, neither one of them ever told me what
changed his mind.  It was on one of their visits, they go to store
together, and Michael insisted that Kim and I stay behind.  We sit there
for about two hours worried that Michael would say something insensitive or
just down right cruel and Aries would take offense and they are now in a
jail somewhere because they?ve been fighting in public.  Maybe that's why I
loved Aries, he was in so many ways like Michael, strong will, stubborn and
yet he was so kind hearted that it was at times a fault.  When they return,
they are laughing and acting like old friends.  All Michael would say was
that he thought Aries was a great guy.

Now here I am looking at my sister-in-law.  They are here to take me to
breakfast and I go.  I have no choice really.  We drive over to IHOP in
Hyde Park to eat.  She tells me all about her new job with the city.  She
is the coordinator of the education task force with the city.  She is so
proud.  She and Michael are thinking of having their first child but I
think she is pregnant, they are shocked at that.  Maybe it was a dream but
I am so sure I have been told that.
	"I told mom and dad, you are moving back home," Michael says.  This
kind of kills the good vibes and memories.
	What did they say?  He is speechless; it says more then anything he
could can possibly imagined saying to me.  It don?t matter, I never
expected a celebration.  No on the contrary, I expected them to act the way
they have for years, as if I don?t exist.  That's all right, I tell him.
	"Well, on to brighter things," Kim interrupts, "We invited a few
people over tonight, a sort of welcome home get together"
	I'm really not in the mood...
	"...Nothing major, just a few friends," she says.  So we sit at the
table, eating our pancakes, and joke about things in our lives and ever
time Aries name would come up the silence would over take us.  They never
want to say the wrong thing but I think by not saying it, it only makes it
feel much worst.  I want to remember Aries.  I want to remember the love we
shared.  The family we built.  He is, as much a part of my soul as anything
and that would never change.  I can not forget him but I know he would only
wish me complete happiness and I will be happy, and I will live because as
long as I live, he lives.  If I gave up now, it would let that bastard who
took away him from me win, but he could never take what we shared.  He
could never take away our heart.

After I shower, I turn on the radio and begin to listen as GCI play the
same old bland, top forty music.  This town has many things but a decent
radio station is not one of them.  I can't stand to listen to this crap
anymore.  If I listen to another Mary J. Blige song, especially a remake of
some classic song, that she now is destroying, I would throw my radio out
of the window.  I flip on my CD player and slide in a Maxwell's latest CD
and begin to dance and groove to the beat.  The last time I danced in my
apartment was with Aries; it was with Maxwell serenading us.

There I am in his arms, letting the music carry me, not a care in the
world.  If it's cool, we could do a little something, something, Maxwell
sings, as I look up into his eyes and he leans down to kiss me.  I am so
frighten at what I know is about to happen.  Our lips connect and lit our
souls like two thousand pounds of dynamite, exploding with every flicker of
our tongues.
	"Gabriel", he whispers, "I love you? Everything inside of me ached.
Every ounce of my flesh comes alive as his hands found parts of my body
alive and breathing on their own.  His touch makes me so aware of myself.
I don't think I have ever been that aware of anything that really mattered
before that moment.  As I look in his eyes and saw what lit the universe, I
kiss him.  Our lips seem to be stuck together.  It is an enchanting moment.
The music is calling me into him and I could not refuse the request he make
ever so forcefully with his tongue.

All right, maybe it was not that neat and that poetic, but I haven't felt
anything like it since or even comes close before.  I finish dressing and
go down stairs to wait for Michael to pick me up.  I told him I would drive
but he insisted on picking me up.  He doesn?t want me to drink and
drive. When my doorbell finally rings, he is thirty minutes late.  I swing
open the door, about to tell him about the meaning of being on time.
	You're late, I say.
	"Sorry", says this voice with a smile on his face.  It sure in the
hell isn't my brother,
	"You don't remember me?"  The smile asked.
	Of course I do, Simon, Simon Bennett.  How are you?
	"The question is how you are?"
	I'm fine.  I give him a hug and stand back to look at him once
again. Simon took my breath away the first time I saw him and maturity has
done well by him.  He still has that glitter in his hazel eyes, I wrote my
first piece of poetry about him, at fourteen.  He didn?t know I was alive.
I was just his best friends little brother.
	"I've missed you"; he says reaching out and touching my face.
	No, because if you have, there is this invention called a
telephone.
	"I see you still have your wit" I see you still have that firm ass,
that's what I want to say but I think I mumble, yeah well.  Oh something as
silly as that.  This smooth, yellow angel has been my first, not that at
the time it is more then anything but sex to him.  He still has his little
side dishes of women and I was just his extra dessert.  I don't think he
ever know that I know. Soon I learned you have to deny yourself some guilty
sweet pleasure, no matter how good they are because they could cause tooth
decay.  I never told my brother about him because I never wanted to do
anything to ruin their friendship.  Who am I kidding; I just don?t want my
brother to interfere.  After it ended, a part of me was relieved, more of
me was angry as hell.  I was tired of being his dirty little secret.
	"You ready to go?"
	Sure, just let me get my keys, I say smiling, picking up my keys
and closing the door behind me.

On the drive over we talk about nothing really. It is as if we are both
trying to avoid any mention of what happen between us.  We talk about
Atlanta, about Chicago, past childhood memories.  But our lives seem to be
off base.  He asks me about Aries and I tell him all I can.  Simon Bennett,
my first cup of coffee with lots of cream and sweet as hell, he could still
keep me awake.  Even now, his hazel eyes have the same glimmer in them.
The way his short hair comes to a point at the front of his forehead and
his ears just slightly pushed out from the side of his head.  The way the
nape of his neck continued down into his rounded chest, attaching to it
some of the thickest arms toned and bronzed by nature.  Every time he looks
over at me and smile or laugh at something I say, in that deep voice of
his, which rolls as smoothly as thunder does on the stormy nights, yet it
somehow manages to soothe you, I feel myself rumble inside. From the
beginning this man holds me captive. The way he bites on his big luscious
lower lip when he talks.  I always thought this is one of his more sexy
moves.  Then I learned that he did this when he wants to say something.
	What's on your mind?
	"Nothing, why do you ask?"
	You're biting your lip.
	"I guess I should tell you, Michael knows about what happen between
us."
	When did you tell him?
	"About four years ago, I was drinking and it sort of just spilled
out."
	You can do better then that, nothing-just spill out.
	"I guess I always felt like I somehow did you wrong."
	I wasn't a child.
	"You are fourteen."
	And you are sixteen, what's your point?
	"I just want you to know it did mean something to me, I just wasn't
sure what."
	Well that's good to know.  We're here; I say this with the intent
of cutting off this line of conversation.  I wasn't sure I want to know
what it meant to him.  I have in my mind what it meant and this has given
me some token of peace.  I don't want to disturb that.

As we enter the room with so many unfamiliar faces, I feel myself wanting
to grab a hold of Simon and let him guide me through the maze of faces and
smiles but I keep thinking, which one is his wife.  Michael called me not
long after I can moved to Atlanta to tell me that he was marrying some girl
from the neighborhood but I can?t recall her during our conversation and
frankly I don?t given a damn anyway.  I walk in front of Simon, ever now
and again; I look back to make sure he is still behind.  He is.  I walk and
people speak but I can't place faces and when I do, I can't place a name
with it.  It is a lifetime since I bothered to think about this life.  It
is as if I belonged to some alien species that has taken over my body as a
youth and only now decided to return it to me so that I might feel all the
pain and experience none of the joy it received.  I spot Kim over by the
table putting out more food.  The quicker she puts it out the faster they
gather around her to devour it.  She turns and spots me and stretches out
her arms to greet me and we embrace.  She is dressed in a long black dress
that clings to her delicate body with such ferocity.  She is beautiful.
Her hair dangles in dreads behind her and she appears the elegant hostess.

The rest of the night I walk through the crowd, reintroducing myself to the
people from my past.  I avoid Simon as much as I can; he would stop to ask
me how I am doing, which I would reply fine and trot off to someone else.
The music plays from the stereo in full force.  Oldies fill the room and
the room seems to go with the tunes.  It is if it is guiding their bodies
with intensity.  The music seems to become a force that is guiding not only
their bodies but their souls as well.  You could see the reactions in their
eyes and in their nonverbal language.  The slight touches, the closeness
that seems to draw each person close to someone.  Soon the room begins to
empty off and the only thing is left are a few couples.  I see Simon
sipping on a drink standing alone against the wall.  I make my way to the
back porch.

The wind is blowing lightly.  Heavy enough that it takes me a few tries to
light my cigarette.  As I begin to puff on it, Michael comes out the house.
I hand him a cigarette; he lights it and begins to puff off it.  We stand
there in deep silence saying so much without saying a word.  The wind
caresses our skin and the moonlight embraces us as like it would do when we
are younger, looking out of our bedroom windows.  Finally I turn to him.
	So you know.
	"Know what?"
	About Simon?
	"About you and Simon, yeah, it's cool."
	Why don?t you tell me, when he told you?
	"Why don?t you tell me?'  To this I have no answer.  I just smile.
	"I was going to but he made me promise not to" I laugh and he
laughs.
	"I always thought something was happening between the two of you
and the night he signed his divorce papers he told me, I wasn't shocked
just surprised a little"
	He's divorced?
	"Four years, now."
	Any children?
  	"Yeah, he has the cutest little boy."
	Is that why you sent him to pick me up?
	"Now would I be that damn obvious."
	Well, yes.  Michael has a lot of strong suits but being sly when he
thought he is doing something he believes is in my best interest well that
is when he is not good a subtleties.  As we begin to talk, I can't help but
to notice how happy my brother is.  It is something in his tone.  Something
in the way he talks about Kim.  Something that was not there when I have
seen him with other women before her, something I never noticed in him
before.  He is fulfilled.

As we take the last tokes off of our smokes, Simon comes on the porch and
stands over us, smiling, holding two drinks.  He hands me one and he begins
to sip on the other one.  Michael makes his way back into the house and
Simon takes his place on the steps beside me.  We begin to talk; he tells
me about his marriage and his divorce and shows me a couple of pictures of
his little boy.  I feel his arms go around me, we sit in silence.  As
silent as it could get, the wind seems to form music.  It is harshly soft
and brutally beautiful.  It begins to caress my skin and engulf my body
with its kisses.  Then it stops and I look at Simon, his arms overwhelming
me.  I can scarcely bear the knowledge of knowing that I want to make love
with this man.  I am betraying Aries, at least I feel like it.  Everything
inside of me tells me to break away but it has been so long since I felt
another person's arms around me.  I avoided all human contact after Aries
has been taken away.  Part of it is I am scared to get too close to anyone
but the other side part was I was so damn angry.  I was angry at the world,
angry with love, angry with men and definitely angry with God. I realize I
can't run forever.  Maybe this is good, starting with the first, starting
with where it has began.  Simon seems to want me.  Every time he looks at
me, I see it all in his eyes.  It seems as if he has been waiting for this
chance for a long time.  His eyes speak of it, they speak of history, and
they speak of lost opportunity but most of all they speak to me.  I lean my
head into his chest and I awoke.