Fjords Reviews

September 01, 2018

by Michael Leal García

When the doctor raised what should have been the first of his twin sons, Danny saw a head of wooly hair and Vantablack skin that couldn’t have come from him or Liliana, who tugged at his sleeve and shouted something he couldn’t make out. Her words an unintelligible din as her anguished face dimmed and drifted out of frame. When he came to, in a hospital bed beside Liliana’s, she swore up and down that the kid’s dark brown skin—she would never say black—came from her mother’s side of the family, Salvadorans the color of night.

“He is your son,” she pleaded.

He couldn’t tell whom she was trying to convince: him or herself.

When he could stand, he didn’t say anything to Liliana, didn’t bother to look at the two cribs to the left of her. Instead, he walked to his car where cried and thrashed like a heartbroken fool. Then he raced to their house in Angelino Heights, kicked in the door to the kids’ room, tossed his shit into eight garbage bags, and moved into his father’s house, into his old room, now cluttered with exercise equipment.

Liliana sent text after text, pleading for him to come back to the hospital and then the apartment he vacated. Finally, she confessed what he figured out the moment before passing out: she fucked some black guy during their brief breakup nine months earlier, after Danny lost his shit and dumped her after she went to the movies with her sister instead of him. “It’s the principle,” he said, never explaining what that principle was.

“I was angry,” she wrote. “He was literally the first guy I saw.”

Her words, like a Catherine Wheel, broke him asunder. In his childhood room, he bawled into a musty pillow and punched the air mattress his father bought him. Deep down, though, he knew he was at fault. He let her go. He set everything into motion. Still, when his hands stopped shaking, he sent her a reply: “What kind of whore lets a stranger go raw?”

He shut off his phone and left it off, deleted all his social media accounts. He couldn’t bear to see pictures of his friends’ kids and spouses, their ostentatious joy. He stopped paying his share of the mortgage, the only revenge he could muster. For a week, he remained in bed, didn’t do more than listen to music and pee, not once taking a shower. He didn’t eat, could barely drink the Gatorade and protein shakes his father pushed on him. All he could do was think of Liliana getting fucked by countless men and the grim joke called his first-born son.

Then he went on an epic bender, thirteen days drunk and stoned, nailed whomever he could. The luck he had! Eleven skanks, including a twenty-year-old stripper who prattled on about her unsurprisingly strained relationship with her father. And then there was the pregnant girl smarting from her boyfriend of six years ghosting her. He fucked her raw and then ghosted her, too. The whole time he hadn't used his real name once.

When he turned his phone back on, he found a message from Liliana: “The paternity test results are in. The doctor wants to talk to both of us.”

He considered blowing her off, but the curiosity tormented him worse than the faceless black man in his nightmares.

At the doctor’s office, Danny ignored Liliana as they waited for Dr. Menakian. He dicked around on his phone, played Fortnite. He could hear her nervous breathing.

The door swung open. “Thank you for coming,” Dr. Menakian said as he took a seat behind his desk. “Let’s jump right in, yeah?”

“No, can we draw this out further? I enjoy the tension.”

Dr. Menakian closed his mouth, turned to Liliana. A pleading look on his face.

“Please, go on,” Liliana said, her voice cracking.

He tried to imagine the face he refused to look at.

“Well, then. Mr. Gonzalez, you are, in fact, the father of one of Ms. Vega’s children. I’m sure you can imagine which one.”

The kid birthed three minutes after his overdramatic loss of consciousness, the one he hadn’t seen.

He almost felt happy.

“I know how it sounds.” Dr. Menakian pushed a box of a tissues toward Liliana. “Twins with two fathers. But all things considered, they’re something of a miracle.”

Dr. Menakian called it heteropaternal superfecundation. Instead of ovulating one egg, like normal, Liliana ovulated two during the same cycle and had both fertilized, by two different men.

“I can’t imagine the difficulty this has brought the both of you, but there is a potential silver lining.”

He had a son. That should have been the silver lining, but that son had a black brother, the awful reminder that he was a cuckold. How could he raise his son and not feel perpetual shame?

“What? Does my son get a big dick out of this, too?”

Liliana’s sobbing swelled.

“Mr. Gonzalez, please,” Dr. Menakian motioned toward Liliana.

He finally turned to her. She had her face buried into her lap. “What’s the silver lining?”

Dr. Menakian held his gaze on Liliana and sighed. “Because of the rarity of this type of birth, I might be able to arrange some press, maybe a talk show circuit. It could earn you a considerable amount of money.”

He looked at Liliana again, her back rising and falling with her muffled sobbing. He thought of all the things they bought for the boys. Everything paid for on his credit card, including the down payment for the SUV he insisted they needed. And soon he would have to flip for rent, buy furniture and appliances, and probably pay child support. He would never recover from the humiliation of his son’s birth, but the thought of a cash payout to release him from the Promethean rock of debt appealed to him. He could do some embarrassing interviews for that. He might even get a pity lay or two for it.

“What kind of money are we talking about?”

“Upwards of a hundred thousand dollars. Maybe more.”

He would sell his soul for that.

Liliana raised her head, wiped the tears from her face.

“No. I’m not doing that. I’m not going on TV to humiliate myself.”

“Why not?” Danny asked. “You don’t want feel for twenty minutes what I’ll feel for the rest of my life?”

Liliana sputtered a string of cacophonous sounds—like a beatboxer spitting a beat—and then ran out of the room.

didn’t call or text her. He spent the rest of his paternity leave getting fat and playing $40 no-limit Texas Hold’em at the Commerce Casino and going deeper into debt at the Spearmint Rhino. Soon enough those six weeks passed and he was back to hustling the newest cell phones and screen protectors and cases and data packages and telling customers he had never met the bespectacled man with the annoying catchphrase. He didn’t say word one about the kids, flat out ignored any questions about them. Got to a point when people thought they died in childbirth. His GM even sent him a letter of condolence.

Six weeks became six months. Fifteen pounds of depression fat became thirty six, a second chin, and a new wardrobe. So long slim fit.

All the while, Liliana texted him a picture of his son every morning. No commentary. Just a picture of his son growing out of one onesie and into another. And then he no longer looked like a little old man. He looked like a baby with Liliana’s eyes. His wide nose. Still, no way he could have a relationship with that kid. He couldn’t look at him without thinking of some random black guy fucking Liliana.

His father lined the refrigerator door with beer every day. “Therapy,” he called it. “Just drink. It’ll take the edge off. And when the edge is off, drink some more to forget.”

But he couldn’t forget. It seemed as if everyone had or was having children. He couldn’t escape the image of a pregnant woman, her boyfriend or husband cradling her stomach, someone pushing a stroller or lugging a kid around in a Baby Bjorn.

He couldn't shake the shame of it all.

“So what are you going to do?” his father asked.

They were watching TV.

Danny shrugged, took a pull of beer.

“You're better off without them,” his father said. “You can have another kid when you find yourself a good woman, someone who isn't crazy for mayates.”

It was mayate this, mayate that. Danny didn’t bother to stop him from saying that word. It was like he was a teenager all over again. Back then, his father forbade him from hanging out with any black kids. “They’re trouble,” his father said at the dinner table, behind the wheel of his pickup truck. “They’re lazy, don’t pay for shit. Back when I sold Cadillacs with your uncle, we never sold a car to a mayate. You know why? Cuz a month after a sale, they would stop paying. Every time a fucking repo.”

He knew his father to exaggerate. The true numbers in his stories always inflated. The dozen cholos from F_______ who chased him across the LA River was actually one, though his uncle said the guy was a scary looking fuck. Still, he didn’t befriend any black kids, didn’t do more than exchange a few words when necessary, maybe a joke at someone’s expense. It wasn’t worth the trouble.

On the kid’s first birthday, Liliana didn’t text a picture. He played like he didn’t care. Throughout the day, though, he made up some reason to check his phone. He needed to check the time, his e-mail, stock updates, weather forecasts, breaking news on whatever. After work he made a B line to Sam’s Hofbrau to calm his mind and enjoy the restorative properties of tits and ass, and when that didn’t work, he went to the Commerce Casino, but the haunting silence and the image of the kid in a Deadpool onesie quelled any strategic thinking. After two hours, he was down $600, so he split and went back to Sam’s and drank himself stupid.

The blaring sun woke him. He shielded his eyes from the vituperative light, pulled his phone out of his pocket. It was 4:17 a.m., and there were no text messages. He tossed the phone aside and wondered why the sun was out so early. Then he felt a jab to his ribs. The sun fluttered.

“Have you been drinking?”

“That’s a stupid question.” He kept his hand over his eyes. “What are you doing up so early?”

His mattress felt like stone.

“I’m working. What’s it look like? Put your hand down.”

“Close the blinds first. The sun’s shining right in my face.”

“Did he say the sun?” another voice asked.

“Who is that?”

“Who do you think it is?”

He squinted, looked between his fingers, but he still couldn’t see anything but blinding white light.

“Dad?”

“Where do you think you are?”

“Turn off the light,” the other voice said.

Out went the sun, and two cops appeared, one crouching right beside him, a flashlight in his hand, another standing, his hand on his gun.

Danny hopped onto his ass, felt something drip off his chin. He looked down and saw his shirt caked with puke. He turned to his left, saw his car, the driver’s door ajar. Over the cops’ shoulders, the red glow of Sam’s Hofbrau.

“I’m going to give you two options,” the crouching cop said. “One, you call triple A and get towed home, or I impound your car. So what’s it going to be?”

“I don’t have triple A.”

After tossing his soiled shirt into the street, he snuck into Farmer Boys for a whore’s bath and then hoofed the three miles to Liliana’s house.

Her bedroom lights were on. The window open. How many times had they shared a blunt and looked out that very window at the 101 freeway. Streaks of red and white light bleeding across the ether. The thunder of passing cars, the odd soundtrack to his idyllic life.

He sat on the curb. Goosebumps covered his chest and arms. Maybe she forgot, he thought. But after a year, why forget now?

Under the crescent moon, he could see the daffodils (he refused to plant) and her purple hyacinth in full bloom, the garden gnome he refused to put in the lawn, a silhouette on the balcony, waving him over.

His face tingled. The freeway roared in his ears. It took all his might to fight the urge to run.

From under the window, he could see she was holding one of the boys, but it was too dark to tell which one, the whole of her body backlit and cloaked in darkness.

“Are you okay?” she asked.

“Yeah. I’m good. I just woke up early and decided to go for a walk.”

“Is that throw up on your pants?”

He looked down, saw what he hadn’t noticed earlier: blonde splotches running down the front of his pants, all the way down to his feet.

“You didn’t know, did you?”

He felt like an asshole.

“I’m going to ask you this one more time: Are you okay?”

He gazed into her silhouette. Somewhere in that darkness emanated the babble that cleaved his sunken heart.

“No. I’m not okay.”

“Was it that hard to admit?”

It was, and there was so much more he wanted to say.

She leaned over the balcony. “You got fat.”

“It’s the darkness. It adds thirty—”

“Your son could use a father.”

The word lingered. Son. His first born. His only.

“Is that him?”

“No.”

Suddenly, he was grateful for the darkness.

“Are you going to run again?”

The thought crossed his mind, but he had already come this far.

“Why did you stop sending pictures?”

“You never responded to any of them.”

“That didn’t mean I didn’t want them.”

“You hear how ridiculous that sounds, right?”

He did.

“I guess I didn’t realize they were the best part of my day until they were gone.”

He hadn’t actually admitted this to himself until this moment.

“Do you want to meet your son?”

A group of ducks waddled into the lake. From his perch in Liliana’s arms, the kid giggled and reached out for them. He had shaggy, black hair like a tiny Beatle, just like in his own baby pictures.

“He likes the ducks,” Liliana said.

“Aren’t they ridden with lice?”

“Probably. Want to hold him?”

No sooner had he opened his mouth to answer than she was placing the kid in his arms. Remembering his karate days, he dropped into horse stance—supposedly the most stable of all standing positions.

“What are you doing?” Liliana asked.

“Nothing.”

Danny cradled the kid in the crook of his left arm and held the back of his head.

“You don’t have to hold his neck, and stand up straight. Relax.”

He let go of the kid’s neck, stood up straight, though felt a bit shaky. The kid squirmed and groaned and, when he couldn’t free himself, started to wail.

“It’s okay,” Danny said softly. “It’s okay.” He then did the only thing he knew to do: bounce the kid up and down. That amplified the kid’s crying twofold, like a plane taking off.

“It’s okay, mijo,” Liliana squeezed the kid’s little hand. “This is your daddy.”

The kid wasn’t having it.

“Here, just take him back.”

“Give it some time. He’ll eventually get used to you.”

In her arms, the kid stopped crying, just stared at Danny.

“What’s his name?”

“How don’t you know?”

He shrugged his shoulders.

“Nothing went to plan, so I didn’t assume you’d keep the same names.”

Somewhere nearby two ducks squabbled, and the kid cackled and kicked his feet.

“His name’s Noe. Noe Gonzalez.”

“I was sure you’d give him your last name.”

“Do you ever get tired of being wrong?”

“In this case, no.”

When he told his father about meeting his son, his father sucked his teeth and threw his hands in the air.

“She made us a laughing stock and—what?—you’re going to be friends with her?”

“I just want to see my son. That’s it.”

His father grabbed Danny by the shoulders.

“You need to let them go.”

“The kid deserves a father.”

His father let go of him, sucked his teeth again. “You do what you want, but don’t even think about bringing either of those bastards here.”

He didn’t.

He visited Noe and Liliana every couple days, fed Noe his dinner and, when Noe stopped crying in his arms, walked Noe around the block and told him stories of his boyhood back when Echo Park was filled with cholos, beatings, and drive-bys. “Lucky for you, you won’t have to worry about that. Your only problem will be which pretentious bar you want to go to.”

Some nights he talked about all the things they would do when Noe got older: camp in Joshua Tree, learn Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu, play craps in Vegas, visit his family in Guatemala. “And then we’ll visit the Galapagos Islands and snorkel with sea lions and check out the giant tortoises. Man, they’re fucking huge.” Some nights Danny just sang. Deftones, mostly. Judging by how much Noe babbled along with the songs, he seemed to love “Minerva” and “Teenager” best. And just before he put Noe to bed, Danny read him a story or two. Every time he affected the voice of bears and mice and brave boys and brave girls.

Though he never asked for it outright, she upheld a tacit agreement to shield him from the other one. Never were they in the same room.

In time Liliana taught him how to fed Noe without making too much of a mess, how to change his diapers, how to get shit out from under his fingernails, how to take him to markets and restaurants, how to juggle him with shopping bags. Out of paternal paranoia, he learned CPR, the Heimlich Maneuver, and where the closest hospitals were: Silver Lake Medical on Temple, Saint Vincent’s on Alvarado, Good Samaritan on Wilshire, and White Memorial on Cesar Chavez. He wanted to be ready for anything.

On his afternoon with the kid, he found Liliana in front of the house, both kids in the stroller. He hadn’t seen the other one since he passed out in the delivery room. He now had a billowy afro.

“Before you say anything—”

“The fuck is he doing here?”

“I don’t have anyone else to watch him for me.” The other one didn’t exactly look black or Mexican. Puerto Rican maybe. “I have a last minute work thing. I have to show a house in Westwood, and I can’t afford to lose this deal.”

“You’re out of your goddamn mind if you think I’m going to watch that little shit. He doesn’t even know me. Let Tyrone watch him.”

She closed her eyes and took a calming breath.

“His name is Cory, and he’s in Korea right now, serving his country.”

“That’s not my fucking problem.”

“It is today.”

She tossed the baby bag at his feet and sauntered to her car.

“Hey! Where the fuck are you going?”

She got in and started her SUV. He bolted for her, banged on the window.

“What are you doing? Take your fucking kid! He doesn’t even know me.”

She backed out of her drive way and took off.

He couldn’t help but feel everyone’s eyes on him as he pushed Noe and the other one around Echo Park Lake. Even the pigeons seemed to stare. A jogger in pink spandex stopped, pulled out an earbud. “Are they brothers?” she asked.

“Fuck off.”

“Fuck you, asshole.”

The jogger continued running. He might have felt some shame had the jogger not reminded him of his first date with Liliana. He took her to Masa of Echo Park and then a walk around the lake where he dared her to run like Phoebe from Friends. And she did it, too, flailing her arms about and taking wild, spastic leaps through the throng of passersby. He doubted he could find another woman like her.

“Holy shit, is that him?” a voice said.

He snapped out of reverie and saw Peter and Elena standing before him.

Elena shook her head and gave Danny a hug. “Never mind him.”

“So, is it?” Peter asked.

“Leave it alone,” Elena said.

“Yeah, that’s him.”

Danny scanned the lake for anyone else he knew.

Peter knelt down beside the boys. “They’re not exactly identical, but they damn sure resemble each other.”

He hadn’t noticed until now. Both boys had the same wide nose, round chin, and light brown, almost hazel eyes.

“Tell me something,” Peter said. “Is little man here packing more than you?”

Elena slapped the back of Peter’s head and glared at him. He put his hands in the air and took a step back.

“I’m actually glad to see you with him,” Elena said. “It’s really big of you.” She knelt down beside the boys and waved at them. “Hi.”

Both boys giddily waved back at her with both hands. Her three-stone diamond engagement ring glittered in the sunlight.

“What have you been up to?” Elena asked. “We haven’t heard from you in ages.”

“Not much. Just work, taking care of this guy.”

“Are you guys trying again?”

“No. We’re not doing that.”

“That’s a shame.”

“It’s no big deal. Nothing lasts forever.”

“Thanks, babe, for making it all depressing,” Peter said. “Seriously, though, who’s packing more?”

He regretted going to the lake.

When he found a flock of ducks, he locked the stroller wheels on the walking path and took Noe into his arms. The other one reached out for him, but Danny ignored him and walked Noe to the water’s edge, beside a man tossing pieces of white bread at the ducks.

“Look, it’s your friends.”

The ducks chowed down on bits of white bread. Noe clapped and babbled his excitement. The other one began to cry, his arms still reaching out for Danny.

Danny paid him no mind and took out a Ziploc bag of corn kernels.

“Here.” He placed some kernels of corn into Noe’s hand and modeled tossing them. “Like that.” Noe flung the corn, and to his delight, the ducks glided over and gobbled them up.

“You just going to ignore that kid?” the man tossing white bread said.

Noe chucked another handful of corn at the ducks.

“You know that bread has no nutritional value for ducks. Sure, it’ll fill them up, but they’ll wind up malnourished and diseased. You should use corn—like I’m doing—or chopped up grapes. But if you’re trying to slow roll duck murder, good job.”

“You’re an asshole, you know that?”

“At least I’m not a duck killer. Noe, look.” He pointed at the man tossing white bread. “He’s killing your friends. Tell him to stop.”

Noe babbled something.

“He called you a piece of shit.”

The man shook his head and walked away. The other one stopped crying, just sat there and frowned.

“Come on, let’s feed the rest of your friends.”

Danny gave Noe some corn, which he tossed onto Danny’s feet.

“Son.”

He turned around and saw his father in his Sunday best.

“Hey.” With Noe in his arms, he felt exposed. “What’s with the suit?”

“Your cousin’s baptism.” His father buttoned the top button of his jacket. “I saw you as I was driving home. That him?”

“Yeah. It’s your grandson.”

His father lifted Noe’s chin with his forefinger and scrutinized his physiognomy. “He looks like you.”

“So, this mean you want to get to know him?”

His father shrugged. “I don’t know yet—if I’m to be honest.”

The other one squawked, reached out for someone, anyone.

His father turned to Mason and shook his head. “See, those mayates don’t even watch after their own.”

“He’s with me. That’s Noe’s brother. Mason.”

His father ran his fingers through his hair.

“For fuck’s sake, why are you watching over this niglet?”

“I didn’t have a choice. Liliana had to go to work.”

“You didn’t have a choice? You always have a choice.”

“Was I supposed to leave him out on the street?”

“Dump the little shit at a fire station. Give him to another mayate family. Do something. Didn’t you stop to think how this would make us look?”

Noe squirmed in his arms and blurted a terrified groan. “It’s okay,” Danny whispered and cradled Noe tighter.

With his arms akimbo, his father paced around Danny and shook his head.

“This how it’s going be? You going to watch over that mayate and be his step-daddy? Huh?” His father pointed at Mason, who started to cry. “Look at him. He’s going to grow up to be a piece of shit hoodlum, stealing rims and car stereos and selling crack.”

Danny couldn’t help but laugh.

“You think this is funny?”

“Dad, you’re attacking a baby with the dumbest stereotypes.”

“That piece of shit took away your manhood. Don’t you understand that?”

“He’s just a baby. He didn’t do anything to me.”

His father smacked Danny upside the head.

“Did that whore brainwash you into thinking that?” His father smacked him again. Noe cowered in his arms. “Huh? Did she?”

If he had the balls, he would have socked his dad out and told him to leave Liliana’s name out of his mouth. But he didn’t. Instead, he let his father smack him a third and then a fourth time. Noe shrieked the entire time.

“I want your shit out my house,” his father said after the final strike and then walked away.

Noe continued to cry, so Danny bounced him up and down gently. “It’s okay,” he whispered. “Everything’s okay now.”

Mason was no longer crying. He just stared at Danny.

“Are you okay?” Danny asked Mason. “Sorry. My dad’s a dick.”

He put Noe in the stroller. Tears still trickled down his face, but he smiled when two bees swooped into their airspace. Danny swatted after them but missed. The bees whirled around Noe and Mason, who flailed his arms as if possessed by the holy ghost. Noe laughed and tried to catch the bees.

“What are you doing?”

Danny parried Noe’s grabby hands away from the bees.

Then Mason stopped fussing. Danny glanced at him. Mason was wheezing, a frown on his face. Danny swatted after the bees again and then took a closer look at Mason and saw a sausage link for an upper lip.

“Shit.” Danny pushed the stroller away from the bees, the lake. When the coast was clear, he took another look at Mason’s ever-swelling lip. He held Mason’s hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. ““It's going to be fine, okay? You’re going to be fine.”

Mason’s eyes rolled back in his head.

“Shit. Hey,” he jostled Mason, but Mason was out. “Aw, shit.”

He took out his phone and Googled “bee sting” and “passing out.” Within seconds he learned Noah probably had anaphylaxis and needed a shot of Epinephrine ASAP. So he called 911 and got a busy signal. He tried again and got same shit. There was only one thing he could do: Phoebe Buffay it to the hospital on Temple Street.

When Liliana arrived at the hospital room, she was out of breath, her eyes red and puffy. Mason, lying in a hospital crib, brightened when he saw her. A swollen smile on his face. Danny sat beside the crib, with Noe asleep in his arms.

“Is he okay?” Liliana asked.

“Yeah, he’s going to be fine.”

She picked up Mason and hugged him as if for the last time. Danny shied away. His first time caring for both boys and he almost got one killed.

“Did the doctor say anything else?” Liliana wiped the tears from her face.

“Just that we have to keep an EpiPen with us wherever we go.”

Mason smacked his lips and dozed off in his mother’s arms.

“How are you? You okay?”

“I’m fine, but I made the mistake of taking him to a private hospital. The bill came out to—let’s just say a lot. But the joke’s on them. I’m broke.”

She smiled.

“I would say I’d help you out, but I’m broke, too. I didn’t want to make a thing of it, but I’ve struggled to keep up with the mortgage.”

“Are you behind on payments?”

“No, but I’ve had to borrow a lot of money from my parents.” Liliana walked over to caress Noe’s face. “I’m going to sell the house. That deal fell through, and I don’t want to take any more of my parents’ money. I’m just going to move in with them. They have the space, so it won’t be much of a problem.”

She took a seat beside Danny.

“What if we call Dr. Menakian?”

It took her a second to catch on.

“Are you serious?”

“I don’t want you to lose the house.”

“It’s fine. I can’t live there anymore.”

Noe stretched out his arms and legs, and then Mason did the same and yawned. Then Noe yawned.

“They always do that. It’s like they really are twins.”

“What if I moved back in?”

Liliana forced a smile.

“That’s a thoughtful gesture, but no. I understand why you left me. But you abandoned Noe, for a whole year. I appreciate that you’re trying now, but it’s going to take a while to get over that.”

He looked out the window at the silent bustle of the 101 freeway.

“You think it’ll ever happen for us again?”

“I don’t know. Let’s just be happy we’ve come this far.”

He fought the urge to push the issue, to guilt her and say they owed it to Noe and Mason. He didn’t want to inhabit his old self anymore.

For some odd reason, she chuckled to herself.

“Sorry. It’s just, I was thinking about what you said—if we went on TV. Our episode of whatever would have an awful title.”

Michael Leal García teaches and writes in Los Angeles, California. He is currently writing his first novel.