Of course I fell in love with a dog on the metro. It’s a dog on the metro!

Eventually, I make my way to the station with the RER A line and get on a car that is nice and air conditioned. There’s a family of five in the RER with me. They chose this car before me and as I jumped in just as the doors closed I can’t really complain about loud kids. It’s actually quite cute. Momma is teaching the two smallest English using flashcards. Little girl keeps pronouncing are - aré. English is stupid. She seems to have had enough of this shit and is now singing and dancing down the aisle. I thought she’d stop when she saw me noticing, but she did that French thing that they teach their girls early and looked me deadass in the eye as if to say, “say something, I dare you, putain!”

I said nothing, smiled and she pirouetted away singing something beautiful. Everything in French sounds beautiful.

I walk all over letting myself get lost. It sounds silly, but that’s how I learn a city. If the tourists go one way, I go someplace else. There is an unexpected downside to this: I often get mistaken for a native of wherever I happen to visit.

There was a fussy little toddler. I think she was African - her mama was speaking a language to her I couldn’t begin to identify. Anyway she saw me looking at her, I smiled and waved and suddenly she wasn’t fussing anymore and smiled and waved back. I walked on and turned to find her still staring and she lit up, smiled, blew me a bissou (that’s kind of a big deal) and waved so, of course, I did the same. She doesn’t know it, but I love her.

Eventually I make my way to the touristy places. Their touristy for a reason, after all.

I’m standing at the edge of some parc in SGeL looking at the city from a perspective I have never seen.

I can see the Tower, the Ballon, my arrondissement is over there, I know where. It put a lump in my throat because I know all of the times I almost missed this. I thought about all the times I wanted to not be here anymore. About the time or two I tried to make that a reality. I thought about puking up a bottle of pills when I was fifteen and having my stomach pumped fifteen years later when I though crushing them would keep them down.

And I cried.

I can see home, kid. All that noise, all that pain, all that not being wanted bullshit you had to eat - it didn’t break you. It made you an asshole who always punches up. It made you care for and love the other throwaways and miscreants. And eventually it led you here. That’s not Monsieur Eiffel’s Tower anymore, it’s yours.

I remember that I have two goals on this trip: get lost in SGeL, and write or draw something. So I stand right there against that rail and draw.

Did I tell you? I started an online drawing class yesterday because I to create the art for my next kid’s book myself. I used AI for the last few. Yes, I am aware that I am a terrible human being for that. But I make up for it with a plucky can-do spirit and an sparkling smile.

No? Fine. I’m just a terrible human being, but I’m trying to do better today than I did yesterday.

I make my way to a cemetery. I love cemeteries. Some of my first memories are the Beth Israel Cemetery. We lived in a duplex at the end of a cul-de-sac that abutted the wall that kept all the zombies at bay. I would climb that wall and play hide-and-seek with my first best friend, BeeBee. He was a Jewish kid so it was okay. He’s buried there now. Something, something, circle of life.

I turn to go when I see a name I have only ever seen once before. When my wife was one year cancer free I got a tattoo to commemorate it. I had to find the perfect artist - someone who could turn my badass wife into a badass work of art. That artist was a woman by the name of Alayna Magnan. She created my favorite piece.

So when I got the word that Alayna died last month from cancer the irony hurt a little more than you can likely imagine. She did a few other pieces of mine so I went and stood in front the family Magnan sepulcher. No, I don’t know if it was her actual family, but that wasn’t the point. The point was that a creative soul was still here in the art she created, and I thought sending up a little prayer of gratitude to her wherever she is was the least I could do.

I thought about all of that on the ride home. I was thinking about it when I crawled into bed at 3 AM. I put on some DeBussy and drifted off thinking, this life is enough. This life is more than enough.

I want you to do something for me since, like me, you have an amazing father; I want you to go to him right now, take his face into your hands and look at him. Study the lines on his face, the cracks around his mouth from laughing and smiling, the slight bags under his eyes the moles or freckles, the blemishes, the beauty. When he asks what you’re doing you shush him and tell him, “just let me look at you, dad.” Then look into those eyes of his and consider that you are looking into the eyes of a man who is your safe harbor. Not every kid has a father like that, but you do. Let his eyes, his face, his beautiful imperfections sear into your memory and you hold onto that.

Twenty years ago you turned fifty-two. We had no idea that would be your last birthday. I called from Ohio and we did the dance we had been doing for the previous fifteen years; I didn’t mention Jen and you didn’t ask about her, but she was there taking up space.

It’s been thirty-five years since I walked into the hospital and they told me she was gone. The nurse literally said, “she’s not here anymore,” as if that somehow made things clear. My dumbass thought that meant they’d moved her to UCLA until the bosslady said, “no Mr. Martinez, she died.”

Mr. Martinez - was that the first time I had ever been called that? I mean besides all the times I pissed off teachers. I think it was.

This is grown-up news I am about to deliver so I am going to address you like an actual grown-up.

I don’t know how our story would have culminated. I only know that she was the only thing that mattered from the time I laid eyes on her so many years before. Whether we would have lived happily ever after, or crashed and burned the way two passionate people in a relationship often do is of no import anymore.

It was enough to know that for a time you were enough and so was I.

I’ll be your champion
and you will be mine…

She died. In my grief I made a mess of my life for quite some time.

But that moment, when the nurse said the words… Mr. Martinez… I got stuck there. I left a part of me in that hospital on that day that still resides there thirty-five years later.

When I got to your place that night your birthday was an afterthought. Since that day you carried a certain amount of… guilt? You said, “I hate that my birthday is always going to be a reminder of the worst day of your life.” All this time later and I can chuckle at the irony of you managing to push it to second place on the level of worst days of my life. A different part of that same hospital has a different part of me that will never leave.

Yesterday my favorite of your children messaged me that you’d visited her in a dream. I was not jealous at all. My baby sister learned that her clinically rational older brother does actually believe in some hippie-dippie shit. I told her that while I don’t believe in god, I do believe that you really did drop in to say high and give her a hug. I am confident that one day science will prove me correct.

I am older now than you were when you died, but I have still lived more of my life with you than without. For thirty-three years you were the singular constant in my entire life. No one will ever know me quite the way that you did. No one will ever carry me the way that you did. And no one will ever endure the unrelenting torment of having had me for a child.

You loved me when even I did not love myself. That is some seriously heavy lifting. But then again, you are the strongest man I have ever known.

I don’t know if they do birthday’s where you are, Dad. I just know that you can let go of whatever you carried most of my life. And if you see a certain fiery red haired girl, please tell her I said hello.

I took all of these on an old camera I had no idea how to use. I tried cleaning them up. In 2018 I actually lost scores more of the photos I took that day because a Cat 5 hurricane came through and blew them away.

I love New York.

She retired in August 2018. By October 2018 our home was destroyed by a category 5 hurricane and we needed to decide whether to rebuild or sell and get out. We lived less than 150 meters from the Gulf of Mexico in a three bedroom, three bath, three floor townhouse with a two car garage and a small parcel of land for Dexter. As fate would have it, the USAF sent us Florida at the very bottom of the housing market and we were able to get this place for a one-third its original cost.

We decided to stick around and just travel whenever the spirit to wander settled upon us - which is still very often. So I bought a pop-up RV, parked on my little plot of land and sent my beautiful bride to her family in Ohio while I oversaw the rebuild. And we built it to be our forever home. Three bedrooms was now two and a library / office with an ocean view. High end everything. Italian tile floors and a massive new shower in the en suite. Gone was all of the typical Florida garbage; cheap tile and beige everything.

We were back in our newly rebuilt home by early 2020. Somewhere along the way Covid shut the world down. And in the midst of all of that we had our little progressive district redrawn and handed to a bible thumping assclown. We began to notice an uptick of Proud Boys descending on our town which was turning from a sleepy little city of a thousand into an AirBnB mecca with only a small handful of permanent residents.

Permanent neighbors replaced by weekend rednecks with their fireworks and cheap beer.

I don’t remember how the first conversation began, but before long we were looking at places outside the country we figured we could afford on a military retirement and sporadic freelance work. Ecuador seemed nice. Maybe Chile or Panama. Canada is cold, but she’s an Ohio girl and, depending on where in Canada, I could be a short plane ride home to California. Maybe someplace in Europe, but where could we afford?

We’d been to London, Edinburgh, the Shetlands, Dubrovnik, all over Germany, and even Paris.

We did that thing everyone does when they visit Paris, but a fantasy is all it ever really seemed for us so we let it dance in our imagination and then fade away.

But then my wife did what she always does when she is curious - she researched.

Turns out the cost to move - Visa fees, income requirements, etc., were incredibly reasonable in France.

So.

We decided. We’re moving to France.

I’m going to do that adult thing and start a five year plan, I told her. And I did. Even bought a five year calendar book. I spent the latter half of ‘21 drawing out a detailed plan and putting it down in my calendar with a backup on my phone calendar, with reminders every step of the way.

January 1, 2022 I hung out my proverbial shingle to get to work helping locals in our neighborhood with all their tech needs - laying coax or fiber lines throughout their homes, setting up their IoT devices for the AirBnB rentals, network setups for small businesses, and the occasional website build. Solid plan, good money, and something I can take with me to wherever we end up in France.

That’s right dear reader, Paris was not our first choice. Not because we didn’t love it, but because we knew we would have a strict budget and we engaged in that thing our parental units warned us against all our childhoods - we assumed. Our assumption was that we could never afford Paris.

Turns out our parentals were right all along.

My favorite researcher got to work and was shocked to discover that we might actually be able to swing it.

Cool, but that’s a decision a few years away still.

We had a cruise vacation in February of ‘22 that we’d been so looking forward to. This was post hurricane followed by a rebuild followed by a lockdown.

At some point we discussed France and brought up Paris. When it became obvious that we could afford a small apartment the talk changed to, let’s live in Paris at least a year to be able to say that we did. Then we would look elsewhere that might be more budget friendly.

I didn’t have my calendar book so I couldn’t change it and I tend to leave my phone on airplane mode and in my room when we cruise so it sort sat in the back of my mind. And honestly, it was still so far away as to not truly register.

But then…

What if we sell the house now and just move to Paris?

Now, one of the sexiest things about my wife is her brain. She is legitimately smarter than I can ever hope to be. As I sit here typing this nonsense, she is behind me beginning a new degree program - her THIRD since we moved to Paris!

The question sat there for a moment as I sucked on my cigarette annoyed that the one time I decide to adult and do an actual five year plan, the most cerebral person in my life has decided, fuck it, let’s just go.

I’m the spontaneous one! I am the one who needs to be checked for being impulsive! I am NOT the grown up in this marriage! And yet, here we were in the middle of the Atlantic our roles profoundly reversed.

Well, I said, I supposed we could call Christina when we get home and see what she thinks we can get for the house. But I won’t sell for anything less than -.

Do you think we could get that much?

We might have to make the office a bedroom again, but yeah.

We listed in June. Got no real nibbles. Added the third bedroom back in July. Re-listed it as a three bedroom and got asking within a week. Even then, it did not feel like we were really moving anytime soon. But we did.

To Ohio.

Just until we found a place in Paris.

Not a year after my wife said, what if… we were in Paris apartment hunting.

In April, 2023 we were here for good.

Before I go let me tell you what Paris has done to me.

Paris has made allowed me to lean in hard. I’m safe here. I can breathe and feel like nobody is going to tell me I can’t do that here. I’ve learned that a bisou is truly a gift. It says, I trust you enough to let you into my space. I’ve learned that a location can be a living, breathing, magical thing with healing powers for the broken hearted.

A city can also choose you.

I know - as unbelievable as this is to even type - people who hate Paris. Fucking weirdos the lot of them, but they exist.

But when Paris chooses you something happens. Midnight walks with the dog become conversations with the moon as she peaks down at you in-between blocks. People invite you to dance with them. A cellist will play a song that breaks your heart on a Saturday afternoon while you sit on your balcony listening to your neighbor play. A homeless man will become your dog’s best friend. Your boulangerie will go to the back and get you a hot baguette every time because she knows this home now.

It’s been three plus years. Between you and me - I think we’ll be here a long while longer. Maybe eventually we’ll move north along the coast and I’ll buy a sailboat. But that’s a decision a few years away still.

I’ve been thinking about Uncle Charlie.

The smell of albondigas filling his apartment in Los Feliz. His Thanksgiving feasts in West Hollywood. His annoying pet birds.

Seriously, why the damn birds?

Then I remembered the little café across the street from his apartment on Los Feliz Blvd. The waitresses would fawn all over him. One—I think her name was Teri—went so far as to tell him she thought he was beautiful. He was, but it was the first time I ever saw women swoon.

I remember asking him after breakfast if he found women attractive, and he admitted that he did sometimes. He said he loved dark-skinned Black women. When I was in Senegal last year, I thought a lot about Uncle Charlie. It’s entirely possible that Senegal has the most beautiful people in the world.

You two didn’t always get along. You never really explained why to me. But then, you weren’t the talker. And yet, you always trusted him with me. You knew he loved me as if I were his own. More than that, you knew he could reach me where no one else could.

When I went to live with him for a time, I was sure you and I would never recover. I wanted to hate you, but that fucking voice in my head would scream at me about all the little things I wanted to pretend didn’t matter. And then Uncle Charlie would sit with me at dinner and talk to me in a way nobody else ever could.

He was the one who told me about your dad making you two sleep in the car in the driveway. He told me about the abuse you both endured. He was the one who pointed out all the times you showed up for all of my stupid shit. Yeah, the plays, the sports, but even the silly dreams. I wanted to be on TV, so you took me to meet a director you were sure I was making up. You took me to my tapings. When I was convinced I was going to be the biggest rock star on the planet, you bought me my first electric guitar, and then my first bass.

Even when I was in trouble (fucking always), you made it a point to leave me my music.

“Tell your guitar what you can’t put into words,” you said.

Uncle Charlie reminded me of all of this.

“You have a dad that shows up. You have a dad who comes home every night. You have a dad who puts you first every single day.”

“I thought you were supposed to be on my side.”

“I am on your side, mijo. So is he.”

That time with Uncle Charlie almost broke me. Not because he did anything wrong. He put a mirror in front of my face and forced me to own my own bullshit. I was not ready for that.

I remember wanting the Uncle Charlie who was my buddy—the guy who took me to concerts and drove me around in his ’49 Ford. I didn’t like this asshole who was gently calling me on my shit in a way that forced me to actually deal with it.

He was already sick by then. If I had paid better attention, I would have recognized it. But it wasn’t bad enough for my adolescent ass (assolescent?) to notice.

Not yet, anyway.

By the time he got really sick, you and I had reconciled. Uncle Charlie sat us down and forced us to shut the fuck up while the other of us talked. Each of us—you and I—wanted to murder him at different times that night. That amused him.

You agreed to let me change schools. I agreed to grow up and do the work.

He got sicker.

I begged him to forgive me for anything I ever did. He cracked a smile and told me not to be silly.

I sat with him and was hit by the smell. That blend of medicinal and decay. This beautiful creature was reduced to thin skin loosely draped over bone, covered in lesions. At least he was home and not in some fucking hospital.

He died in your arms. You didn’t care that he’d bled on you. You didn’t want to let your brother go. You wept.

I have often thought that a part of you didn’t just die that day—but that a part of you is frozen in that room at that moment. Two brothers holding onto one another, holding onto the only constant either had ever truly known.

That’s a thought I have at least two-hundred and sixty-three times a day. It’s a thought I had riding on the 4 line today. Every metro-line is special in some way. The 6 line takes you over the Seine. The 4 line takes you to some of the train stations that have trains that will take you to other countries. The 1 line will take you to the Louvre and Tuilleries. The RER C will take you to Versailles. And the 9 line will take you to my front door. Almost. Please, do call first.

As I stood on the 4 going I cannot remember where I realized that I no longer have any excuses for not writing. I have a home in arguably the most storied city in history. I have a modest income coming in. I have all the tools - a brain, a laptop, and an imagination. I have time.

I began writing a draft of stories to compile into a book, maybe. So far I have written what, in my mind, amount to two potential prologues or prefaces. As the 4 line went past my intended stop and I got off to walk to the opposite side of the track and go back I realized I had been in my head telling myself a story.

I’m 53 now. I survived - you survived. You started unwanted; you found an army of people who love and accept you. You spent so much of your life living in your head; you found a home in a city that is more magical than even your imagination. You lost so much. And still, you kept swinging even when your arms were noodles that weighed a metric shit ton. You buried so many of the people who made you the man that you are; here you are, a man they would all be so proud of.

You learned to navigate between worlds you were never truly allowed to be a part of. It was hard, kid, but the payoff has been a life illustrative of something Kiplingesque. You have friends from so many different walks of life that your actual life makes those Bennetton commercials seem quaint.

I wish I could sit on that porch with you and tell you how it all turns out. But if I did that you’d miss the ride. And while the ride is bumpy and at times you were sure you were going to fly off one these times it goes upside down, in the end you get the girl and the happily ever after. So far.

It’s an epilogue of sorts; a post script to stories that still live mostly in my head and pieces and parts of drafts. A draft of an epilogue to a draft of stories I have carried for the sum of my life.

If you’re here you’ll get the stories - and likely the drafts, revisions, re-revisions. Along the way you will get to see the inner workings of my mind. Lucky you.

I got to my exit and walked. I do that a lot. I will start on the 9 line, get off at some station with some other line, get onto some other line, pick a stop, get off, and just walk.

Today’s walk took me to the back of Sacre Couer - a place usually buzzing ass-to-elbow with people. The back was a ghost town and the front was a fraction of the usual. Sundays in August are truly my favorite walking days in Paris.

I walked through Montmartre. I have this way of walking the city that my wife taught me a long time ago. She calls it “the little green man.” When we first got together she realized I really love to wander. Having a cohort along for my wanderings took some getting used to - we don’t all wander the same, you know? So, she suggested that instead of one of us picking a direction to go we let the little green man decide. You know, the green “walk” you see in the US? Well, in a lot of the world, instead of a word, there is a little green man. So, we walk and when we get to an intersection we let the little green man decide our next move and cross whichever street is green. Rinse, lather, repeat for as long as we are out wandering.

Three years of doing that in Paris means I am never truly lost anywhere in this beautiful city. I pick a line I have never taken and get off at a stop I have never taken and walk. And before I even realize it I am someplace I know.

You should try the little green man next time you travel.

Write one true sentence. - Ernest Hemingway

My wife is the best human that I know. At my worst she challenged me to be better; at my lowest she stopped her world to pick me up; at my best she celebrates the loudest.

The morning after the French election and my relief at the far right not taking control of the government is abating and being replaced with the reality that the far left and center have to find a way to govern together. If they don’t, this win will be a moot point come 2027.

It’s not surprising to me that so many people would vote against their own interests to vote for someone like Trump; it’s just disappointing that I have to be related to so many of them.

Yesterday, on this very balcony where I am writing this, my wife let out an ‘awwww’ and I looked up at her, followed her eyes, and there it was. A toddler running - stumbling really - from his momma and into the arms of his father. It was adorable. I could sit here and write about tiny little scenes like that for the rest of my life. Paris, j’adore.

The women of Paris are different. A lot of them are beautiful, sure, but it is much more than that. They own their space in a way that I don’t recognize in a lot of the world. They seem to exist with minimal effort. There is a grace and nonchalance that would fool you into thinking they didn’t work hard to get this good. I love it.

Men in suits on bicycles always make me smile.

You should come to Paris. Especially if you’re young. Come and stay awhile. Do the touristy stuff, the museums, the ride on the Seine, Notre Dame. But then, you should leave your Paris Guide in your hotel and just allow yourself to get lost in this city. Go away from the Seine and into the places with the words you don’t understand. Find a jarden and sit with your thoughts and watch people just living their lives. Don’t google map a place, ask a stranger for directions and fumble through the conversation with your broken French and their broken English. You’ll be glad you did. A few days of this and, I promise, this City will begin to bore herself into your heart.

Be intrepid.

I don’t want to write today. I want to take my wife into our room and make love all day. But then the dog will remind me that he needs to go out so I will have to get dressed again and go back out into this magical city.

This one comes with a trigger warning. I talk about sexual molestation. Funny thing about that (strange funny, not haha funny) is that it took me decades to acknowledge it that way. So, hat tip to my amazing therapist for getting me there.

One more things before I start, I think I am going to skip to the last page of the book so you know this story does end in a happy-ish sort of way. Mom and I are in each other’s lives now. We’re mostly okay. More okay than I ever expected us to be. Okay enough that I can say I love her in a fashion and I think she loves me in her own way. For this lifetime, that is enough.

I don’t remember the first time I felt the hand on my ass wandering down the outside of my pants, down the crack of my ass. I don’t remember the first time I heard, let me see it… tug on the front of my pants… I can, I made it… I just remember it happened enough times in front of enough people that I hoped someone would say something. I was more embarrassed than anything. And sometimes people would tell her to stop it. Whether she would listen or not depended on how much she’d had to drink.

Apparently, she needed to make sure I was growing into a real man. A real man, I would come to learn, was a man with a large cock.

It was humiliating and enraging. And so fucking confusing.

I was way too smart and far too old to not understand on some level what was happening and I knew it was wrong. I was far too young and scared to have the courage to stop it. Every time she would say, I can I wanted to grab her the way she was grabbing me just to prove the point it was fucking wrong, but I was too much of a pussy to do anything more than stand there a child. The worst part of it all - the fucking humiliating part - was that sometimes I would find myself being aroused. That will fuck with your head for decades. A child doesn’t understand biology or physiology. To a kid - to this kid - there must be something wrong with me, something that enjoys this. That, my friends, is a mindfuck that took tons of therapy to unfuck.

The in-between times of not seeing her, of waiting for her to pick me up on a Friday night and having her no show; not wanting to come back inside because she’s gonna be here! is the sort of thing that breaks a kid. The noise inside an unwanted child’s head is a special kind of torture.

Mom’s love their kids more than anything in this world. Obviously, yours doesn’t. What’s that tell you? I’m trash. I must be.

On one of those nights I had spent way too long waiting for her to never show up I had a nightmare. I called for her and my dad came to my room. I was screaming for my mom. When he got close enough I hit him and told him I didn’t want him, I wanted her.

I know, mijo, I’m sorry. He scooped me into his arms. I hit him again and again and again, I want my mom. I think I even screamed that I don’t love him, I love her. He never let me go. He just held on as I wailed and hit him with my curled up fists until I was so exhausted I fell asleep on him.

Years later my dad visited me in Ohio and we talked about that night. He was surprised I remembered. I tried to apologize but he cut me off. Mijo, you were so little and you were scared and hurt. You were so, so angry and you had every right to be angry. You’re not the one who needs to apologize.

There would be months, sometimes years when I wouldn’t see her. Then something really… strange is not the word, but I don’t know what other word to use. I was weeks away from turning ten when I got caught playing a game I invented. I would pretend to be someone and write letters to someone else and I would write the responses pretending to be the recipient of the original correspondence.

This time I was Ronald Reagan writing to Adolf Hitler to tell him to quit with all the war nonsense. I didn’t quite realize I should have been writing as FDR, I was nine for fuck’s sake. Anyway, I wrote back-and-forth between the two and it got really fucking dark. Like, I will bomb and burn you into hell kind of dark. My dad saw the letters and freaked the fuck out. I suspect he wondered if he didn’t have a future serial killer on his hands.

So he called the family shrink - my Uncle Charlie - and set up an emergency family meeting.

It was my dad, my Uncle Charlie, my grandma, and me all at my Uncle Charlie’s West Hollywood apartment. A place that smelled like home and was the safest place in my world. I don’t remember most of the conversation, but I know that at some point my mom was called in and the absences - almost two years straight at this point - and all the touching were laid on the table and discussed openly. I don’t remember if it was uncomfortable, but I suspect my dad and Uncle Charlie did everything they could to mitigate my unease.

What I do remember is that I got my mom back and the next week she was hosting my tenth birthday party with her new husband. Someone took what would become my favorite photo of my mother at that birthday party. I still have it. In it, she is flipping her head so that her gorgeous head of black hair is flying and almost obscuring her face. You can see that it’s her and even recognize her sort of, but she isn’t really visible enough to say for certain. She can be anyone I want her to be in that photo. For that brief moment she was my beautiful mother.

I want to tell you, dear reader, that my tenth birthday party was the beginning of a wonderful relationship with my mom and that everything that came before was left in the memories of time while we built an amazing relationship. But that would make me a big fat liar and you deserve more than that from me.

There were amazing moments. A trip to Yosemite, drive-in movie trips, and… well, a lot of alone time while they did whatever it is two young horny people do in the next room. For two or maybe three brief weeks I even lived with my mother whilst I was in middle school. My second of three middle schools somewhere in Alhambra while my dad got on his feet and found us a new place to live after his divorce from my stepmom.

It was strange to see mom sober. In some ways she was worse than when she was drunk. Drunk she was handsy. Sober she was just mean. Drunk or sober, I was ready to live on the streets after a few days. Then one day my dad was sitting at the bus stop across the street along my path from school right there on Valley Blvd. I was walking home with a buxom 8th grader that I was pretty sure was going to be the mother of my children one day when I saw him. I don’t think I even bothered saying goodbye to the future Mrs. Li’l Rudy, I just took off across the several lanes of traffic. There were screaming horns, screeching tires, metal-on-metal crashing probably, but I couldn’t hear any of it because he was there. He came back for me like he said he would.

Let’s go get your stuff and go home.

We have a place?

We do. We can’t move in til next week, but we can stay with grandma until then.

A week later I was in what would be my last middle school. I honestly do not remember the next time I saw mom. But I also don’t remember missing her.

—

Post script

I want to say a few things about what it did to me growing up to be touched that way, to be told explicitly that the value of a man is the size of his cock.

I became hyper sexual. No surprise, I’m sure. I lost my virginity way too young and slept with enough people that I ended up feeling very much like a piece of meat. I quite literally grossed myself out. I am not writing that for sympathy; I am writing it for the man or boy reading this going through it. It took me years of therapy and sobriety to finally get to a place where I realized that I am not defined by anyone else’s definition of a man. I determine my value, not someone who couldn’t keep their hands off of me when I was a boy. I am worth so much more than the shit that happened to me; the shit that happened to me is not who I am, it’s just shit that happened to me, you feel me? And if you are reading this and this happened to you I want you to know that you are so much more than what that fucking voice in your head says.

I want to tell you about my cousins Jesse and Joey and why they’re both dead now and how my dad saved me from ending up like them. I want to tell you about my cousin Becky and how she was my best friend and why she’s dead now and how my dad saved me from ending up like her. I want to tell you about my tío JoJo and how he lost an eye when he got caught cheating at cards in Texas and how he gave me my first sip of Schlitz Malt Liquor.

I want to tell you all about them, but at fifty-one the memories dance together like a mass of sweaty drunkards tripping balls on X at a rave in a warehouse somewhere in the San Fernando Valley. I have flashing moments of smoking fake weed with Jesse before we got Joey to give us the real shit. There’s that time Jesse landed on his face trying to jump farther than anyone else on the shitty bike ramp we three built. There he was screaming down the hill and onto the 101 on-ramp riding a shitty go cart we slapped together with plywood and wheels we broke off of an abandoned grocery cart.

I don’t want to remember the night Jesse and I walked home from Los Felix to Boyle Heights at one in the morning because his mother refused to come and get us, but also demanded he be home. I don’t really mind remembering the train hopping, or even the homeless guy chasing us with a knife along the L.A. River. But I really would love to have the memory of his mother beating the shit out of him for doing something as stupid as walking the streets of L.A. in the middle of the night erased from my memory bank. But I will always remember that being the first time in my life I felt pure, unmitigated hatred for another human being. I was too young to save my cousin from his personal beast, but I never forgot and never forgave. When his mother dies there is a very good possibility I may actually piss on her grave.

I do want to remember Jesse getting clean and sober and having a family in spite of the drugs and the prison and the fucking bullet holes that ravaged his body. I want to hold onto that moment he got up on stage and absolutely killed it in a play. I want to remember that decades apart had not diminished our joy at being together. I will always remember and cherish our last conversations as grown men about trying to do better for his kids than was done for him; about him forgiving his mother because holding onto that shit is like a cancer, you know?

Yeah, I know, but Imma hold onto it for you because fuck that puta.

Laughing, that’s fucked up, Rudy, but thank you.

Of course. I fucking love you, man.

I know fool, cuz we’re both the same.

We’re both the same.

I want to hold onto those moments of Jesse being happy and sober and whole. So I won’t tell you how his story ends.

I want to tell you about how badly Jesse and I just wanted to be Joey; that everything I could do, Joey could do better and with more panache. But then Joey disappeared into the streets and one day he never made it back.

I want to tell you about the nights Becky spent laying awake with me all night talking about the stars and the shitty people who hurt us; how we swore we would always have each other’s back and look out for one another because we both had moms that were complete shit; how we talked about wishing they had each just aborted us, but if I have to be here I am so glad you are too; how Becky showed up at my second of three middle schools because some eighth grader was threatening me so she let him know she would be waiting for him if he ever touched me; how she survived juvie and smack and got her life together and raised a family and asked me to be the godfather of her first born. I want to tell you all of that except, that last bit isn’t true.

She didn’t survive.

I want to tell you their stories, but I don’t want to get them wrong. They deserve better and I love them too much to fuck it up, so I will leave you with those little snippets. I also don’t like remembering the world around them. The mothers - my aunts - that brought them into this world just to, at best, ignore them, and at worst do horrible things to them.

The world around them was the world that made my mother and my aunts. It was a bad world, made worse because the thing a world of neglect and abuse begets is a surfeit of misery and pain.

And if I don’t tell you at least a little of their stories I would be doing them a disservice. They are a part of me and what I am. More than that, though, they are what I would have become had I not been so fucking lucky enough to have had the father I did. We’ll talk about Big Rudy later, I promise.

I will tell you that my tío Jojo was born in 1900 and wore a patch like a pirate (I know you just went ARRRRGGGGG and I don’t judge). The story I remember is that he was my maternal grandfather’s brother and he lost the eye after getting caught cheating at cards in the state of Texas. Then he was tossed out of Texas and told never to return. I don’t know how much of that is true, I just know he was an old man by the time I arrived on the scene. His wrinkled, leathery skin always smelled like Pall Malls which always hung off the end of his fingertips, the ash ever growing but never daring to fall. Or maybe it was Lucky Strikes. He spent the days playing solitaire, drinking Schlitz, and smoking. He shared his Schlitz with me, but never his cigarettes. Apparently, five is only too young to smoke. He taught me how to play solitaire.

He was a fixture. A tacky piece of decor from a bygone era that always come back around and into fashion again if you wait long enough. I thought he would always be there.

He made it to 93.

He won the race.

This article is from the original Chicano in Paris recently moved here to its new home.

The other day I posted something I sort of regret. I say sort of because there is always noise in my head shouting me down and it’s embarrassing. But I shared it anyway because I thought, I know this is a thing that does happen and I know there are people of every color and exoticism with cool-funky names that feel they were rejected before they were even let in the door.

The noise in my head that kept me awake: we didn’t get the apartment even though we make more than enough $$, exceed every single qualification, and offered to pay the first year upfront.

My head: did the owner see my name (Rudolfo Martinez) and decide, ‘too ethnic, hell no’?

Me: No way. It’s a sellers market and they’re just going a differenr route.

My head: right.

Me: right.

My head: right?

Me: fucking hell if I know.

It turns out it was just noise. The owner is away in India living the joie de vivre that Parisians are famous for (and one of the most appealing things about the entire Parisian experience) and has not gotten back to our agency. The rejection came from the property manager as a proxy so our agent went above them because they have a soft spot for (TGB) because she is such a sweetheart and a badass. True story.

So, the world is not always a bad place and I just let the stupid shit in my head win a minor battle for a short time. I figured, if nothing else, by sharing this with you you might feel a sense of relief that you’re not the only one who sometimes spins in a mindfuck of your own creating.

Yesterday we spent the day looking at apartments. The first one was in the 3rd arrondissement - which is my first choice of arrondissements. So we walked from our airbnb in the 11th down to the third through all of the wonder that is Paris Fashion Week. It was drizzling and overcast so when I saw a woman in big sunglasses walking towards me it struck me as a bit odd. Then it hit me. I looked at her lips to be sure I wasn’t crazy. Those gorgeous, full lips confirmed it just as I walked past on the narrow sidewalk, brushing arms. I just brushed arms with Anne Hathaway. Whatever happened the rest of the day, this day was already a win.

We made it to the apartment and waited for Melissa, our Mila Kunis clone of a relocation manager.

Anne Hathaway is on my list, you know.

Yeah. She’s on MY list too.

Melissa arrived. The apartment was modern, quiet, and tucked away. It was perfect to me. To me. Boys and girls, I don’t make it a habit of dispensing relationship advice, but here is one thing I will tell you: when you move to a new city with the person you love, make sure the place you pick to live feels like home to the twos of yous. If you love it and your partner doesn’t, you won’t love it for very long. It has to feel like home for both of you.

After some time looking at this place I loved, we went and had lunch with a cat.

The first hour at lunch this little girl came and sat at my feet and ignored literally everyone else. Then I send a couple photos to the insta and she’s all, deuces, dis my new person. So, yeah, that was a self-esteem crusher.

At lunch our relocation team sent us two more apartments so we hopped on the tube and headed to the 16th. That line from The Police song comes to mind when I think about that ride on the tube: packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes...

Anyway, we made it to the 16th. The apartment is across the street from a bistro and a massive hospital. It’s a block away from a massive square, but far enough back to be so very quiet. It is not far from where they’ll be doing a lot of Olympic activities. It’s modern and swanky overlooking a street that is old timey and very Parisian. I wish this was in the 3rd, I thought but did not say.

TGB loved it. I liked it a lot.

We walked the neighborhood and I realized I have already become very familiar with this arrondissement. In fact, my tendency to just walk with no real destination in mind has made me really learn a lot of layout of Paris already. And then it hit me, I can be in the 3rd in 20 minutes on the tube.I can be in the 7th in 20 minutes by foot. This town is all so close.

That apartment was pretty fucking cool, I thought.

Our relocation team wanted to know if we wanted to submit our dossier.

You don’t love it.

I didn’t say that.

I don’t want you to just accept it because I love it.

I would never do that. I can hop on the tube and be anywhere in this city in minutes. It’s quiet. Dexter has a nice size deck and cannot see or fall onto the street. We have everything we need walking distance from home.

Should we?

So we did.

And now we wait.

This article is from the original Chicano in Paris recently moved here to its new home.

As I was about to begin this letter I noticed that I had not capitalized a word in the title. I keep all these letters on my MacBook in a binder and use a simple naming convention along with the date that I change once I post. One word was not capitalized and that stopped me from beginning until I fixed it.

Is that a quirk I get from you or from my mom? Or am I just weird?

Funny as that is, I will likely be thinking about it for the next few days. I still think about that weekend in Palm Springs. You dragged us to a timeshare sales weekend and we were forced to sit in a room and listen to a sale pitch from some dude in a cheap suit. I was completely tuned out and, apparently, so were you. Sales Dude interrupted himself to make an observation about us.

Do you know you both tilt your heads exactly the same at the same time?

As soon as he said it I think we both knew exactly what he meant. We were busted. I still do it whenever I lose interest in a thing, or just zone out. My head tilts to the left, I take a deep breath, and my eyes go wide. Grandma used to do it, too. Bless that poor little Sales Dude’s heart, he was able to take the hint and we were free to enjoy the rest of our weekend.

My wife has Resting Bitch Face (RBF), I have You Bore Me (YBM) face. Together we are the life of any party that sucks and needs someone to say so without actually saying so.

When I sat down to type this letter I was planning on telling you about her. I was going to talk about the life that lead me to her and the kind of husband I have been vs. the husband I want to be.

But now all I can think about is the two of us out in public giving each other that look that says, can we go, please? And how much more fun it is when it’s just the two of us on our terrace judging people for having the audacity to jog as we pour coffee and cigarettes into our face holes.

The way, if one of us is on the terrace alone, we’ll come get the other if our trumpet player is out there on a Sunday. The way I am obsessed with the woman in pink; she’s a septuagenerian who drives a green Mini and always wears pink. Stylish AF with a gorgeous shock of white hair, usually pulled back into a ponytail.

Your girl is here, my wife will say.

I’ll tell you about Sam, The Gorgeous Blonde, soon. But I got distracted almost 500 words ago and now I can’t put the right words together.

Also, I really miss The Gorgeous Blonde.

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From the hill of Montmartre, watch a sleeping city wake. Empty fields transform into the busiest commercial markets in Christendom. Marshland becomes the intellectual center of Europe. Churches rise in stone. And a young king marries a woman who will gift half his kingdom to his enemy.

Join us as Paris explodes from a fortified island into a medieval metropolis. Meet the Water Merchants who control the Seine, the brilliant—and dangerous—philosopher Peter Abelard whose debates drew thousands of students, and the Capetian kings who understood the power of staying put. Explore the birth of Les Halles, the Parisian university before it had a name, and the Romanesque architecture that still stands today.

And discover how one royal marriage—meant to strengthen France—changed the course of history forever. This is the golden age arriving.

In 845, a Viking raid on Easter Sunday forces Paris to pay its first ransom in gold. It won’t be the last. As Charlemagne’s empire collapses into civil war, West Francia fragments into chaos—and the Vikings come.

Follow the story of an empire divided at the Treaty of Verdun, the desperate fortification of Paris’s bridges, and the legendary Great Siege of 885-886 that lasts nearly a year. Watch a young count named Odo defend his city against impossible odds, then rise from the ashes to become king. And discover how the threat from the north reshapes medieval politics forever, leading to the Treaty of Saint-Clair-sur-Epte and the dynasty that would rule France for the next 800 years.

This is the age that made modern Europe. This is Fire and Fury.

I have been writing these letters to you in my head almost from the moment you died. There is no real theme, or end-goal with them; they are just my way of saying the things I would say were you still here. You are the best friend I have ever had so, of course I would want to talk to you about anything and everything happening in my life.

I never bothered writing them down before because I knew some would worry that I was “working through things” and offer unsolicited advice. And you, more than anyone, know how much that makes me want to throat-punch a motherfucker. I’ve learned to rein in that urge. That, coupled with my wife being gone for a long, long time, made me feel that now is the time to get the words in front of my eyes and out of my head.

But too, I wanted to put these words out into the world for people navigating their own shit. Not just grief, but all of the cochinada that throws at us all.

There’s this kid I know and love who got some of my words in my shitty hand-writing tattooed onto their body. The tattoo artist had to make my writing a little more legible (I am so glad you’re not here to give me shit about that), but still — my words. After some imposter syndrome passed, I realized that sometimes my words do matter. If these letters can make anyone feel less crazy, less alone, and closer to centered even for a moment… well dad, I think we will have done a great thing.

You want to know something I didn’t expect when I started this little endeavor last week? I didn’t expect the usual nagging voice in my head — that little fucker that reminds me of every single shortcoming, mistake, and failure in a lifetime full of shortcomings, mistakes, and failures — I didn’t expect that voice to becomes so dimmed. I did not expect that writing to you would bring me your voice in my head.

Your voice is so much better for my soul.

In case I haven’t told you, and just in case you can read this over my shoulder from wherever you are, I want you to know: you were never anything less than everything I needed in a father. I was a hard child and you were a safe place to land. I was too serious so goddamn always and you did everything you could to encourage me to hold onto my childhood. I didn’t know how to tell you that the childhood was the hardest part without making you feel like it was somehow your fault.

That thing that was broken inside of me wasn’t because of you. The misfortune of your vicinity made you the bearer of the brunt of my anger. I will always be sorry for that.

I told you all of this when you visited me in Ohio. I am so fucking glad I got that opportunity.

You told me to stop talking because you knew. You knew when I was four and beating on you to get away from me because I wanted what I didn’t have. You knew all the times I ran away that I was running from the one thing I couldn’t ever get away from - myself. You knew when I chose my step-monster over you because you understood that, even though she was fucking awful to me, she was at least there. And you knew the day I moved out — the day after graduating high school.

You ate a lifetime of shit served by a mini-you.

I know at times it broke you. But you hid those as best you could.

When I tell people that my dad is the strongest person I have ever known it isn’t because you can beat the shit out of their dad (which, let’s be honest, you could totally do), it’s because you had the hardest son in the history of the world to raise. A boy who would have permanently broken any other type of parent. I was not easy. I was rarely kind to you. I wanted so fucking much to make everyone else feel the cavern of empty within me. I wanted to be loved. Then when I was loved I wanted it to come from someone else.

God, I was a bitch of a child.

So when I finally called you that one day not long after moving out to thank you for making me so much stronger than any of my friends seemed to be — needing mommy to help them set up their dorms, send them money, wipe their ass in college — I was mostly fine.

And a bit of a pretentious twat, apparently.

I would say we fought, but let’s be honest: you were letting me think we were fighting when I had already seen you snap a grown man’s let in half with one punch and put another man in the hospital when you beat him with your forearm because you had already broken your hand on his face.

So, thanks for not killing me. There were plenty of times when you should have because, Jesus I was a little shit.

And while you may not have killed me when you probably should have, you did let me fly, fall, and throw myself against any number of hard surfaces. You were there to pick me up, kick me in my ass when I needed it, dust me off and hug me when I needed that, and reel me back in when I needed that, too. I didn’t realize you were letting me try and potentially fail in the safest possible way.

You never did something for me, though. No, that was a solid black line you never crossed and sometimes I hated you for it. But that day I finally called you to thank you… it all made sense.

In a million lifetimes, dad, I would pick you again every single time.

I had been sober a few years and living in Ohio when I got the call the that you were in the hospital, the result of a drunken night and a brawl in a bar. Or outside the bar. Or who cares where it was, really.

I flew home in time to get to you before checkout. You told me that some assholes were picking on some young gay kid, and you intervened. For your efforts, you got jumped.

Honestly, dad, I was not used to seeing you on the receiving end of a beatdown. My entire life was filled with you doling it out to bigger, seemingly stronger dudes. Here you were in a hospital bed broken by other men.

Once grandma’s fear subsided it gave way to that passionate Latina anger. She. Was. Pissed. At the assholes who did this to her son, sure. But mostly, she was angry at you.

So you checked yourself into outpatient rehab and told me to go back to Ohio - you had this. I said no. I said I would stay as long as it took for you to get your feet under you again. I went with you to a few meetings, saw you putting in the work and, after a couple of weeks I started looking at plane tickets.

You told me my sobriety inspired you. That my example was enough for you to stay on the path of sobriety. I thought that was enough.

This is where my regret begins.

I should have stayed. I should have moved back home right then and there. I should have walked through your sobriety with you. If I had done that, you would still be here.

But we all know how the movie ended. I didn’t move back to California like a dutiful son. I went back to my life in Ohio. I stayed in almost constant contact with you and with grandma — just to make sure I was getting the unvarnished truth. And I went on with my life.

I didn’t stay sober. The how and why of my drinking again is unimportant for this letter. All that matters is that I was drinking again. I was drinking when you came out to visit me. I was drinking when you fell in love with my little piece of the midwest. I was drinking when I decided — and made a grand gesture of telling you — that I was going to buy a house big enough for you to come live with me once you retired.

I wanted to repay you for all you did for me. It became something of an obsession for me. To the point where I put down money on a place on a lake the next county over.

Then I got that call.

And I got very, very drunk very, very often in the days leading up to your funeral. I behaved in ways that I am so glad you weren’t alive to see, honestly.

We buried you. I went back to Ohio. I kept drinking. I promised I would quit, but that was a lie. When I was sober I was miserable. I would catch myself thinking about all of the what-ifs. When I drank I was miserable until I was numb. Then I was a monster.

I eventually got sober again. The how and why aren’t really pertinent to this letter. What is important is that getting sober meant dealing with my own guilt, my own regret.

Once I started drinking again, it gave you permission to begin drinking again. At least, that was what the voice in my head had convinced me of. The monologue in my head went something like this:

If you’d just moved back to California to be with your dad when he was getting sober, he might still be here. You could have walked him through his sobriety and, in the process, kept your own. Failing that, you could have simply NOT started drinking again. You were a beacon to your father; an example of sober living. But no, you had to be a selfish prick, and this is the natural end result. It’s as much on you as it is on your dad. You could have saved him. You piece of shit.

Dad, I don’t tell you this to make you feel bad. I tell you this because I need you to see that this is not where my story ends. The guilt, the self-abhorrence, the overwhelming desire to drink again - none of that beat me.

Yeah, maybe if I had moved back to California when you first tried getting sober - MAYBE you would still be here. Maybe if I had never started drinking again you would have held onto my example, or at least you would have called me before ever picking up again yourself. And MAYBE you would still be here.

But maybe is a nothing word; it’s a way to pretend a world into existence that is never going to be real.

What is real is that you drank again. And you died as a result. No maybe can change any of that.

I am sober.

Maybe there were any number of times along the way I should have died. Maybe.

But I didn’t.

I wish I had never picked up again. I wish I had moved back to California to be with you while you got sober. I wish you were still here and you could visit us in Paris and you could fall in love with my wife and my city.

And maybe, in some parallel universe, that is exactly what happens.

Maybe.

I wanted to tell you - I wrote a book. Two so far, actually. For kids because your niece little warrior face inspired me.

Since I cannot draw I have had to utilize AI to create images for me. I would explain AI to you dad, but you’d probably make some lame joke like, “AI can’t draw either!” Then laugh way too hard at your own joke.

As I was gathering some images together this morning I caught myself thinking of some of the old photos I have of you. So I dropped this one into ComfyUI and asked it to clean it up. Suddenly, this faded image of my two heroes in the time before my existence came through a lot clearer. I was not prepared for the tears that would come as I sat here staring at my MacBook.

I never asked what lead to this photo of you two, or even how old you were here. I only know it was before my time because Uncle Charlie was away in the military by the time I came along.

Now you’re both gone.

I’ve been thinking about that a lot since last night’s letter. My two heroes are dead and gone to wherever we go next. I know Uncle Charlie was a believer. I know that it filled him with self-loathing because he was a gay man trying to please his church full of fuck-heads who did not approve. I remember when his ex, R- got married to a woman. I thought it was strange. That’s when I learned about conversion therapy. I met R’s wife once at grandma’s house not long after Uncle Charlie died. She was sweet, demure, just sort of there.

I ended up with his journals after you died. He struggled with his faith and homosexuality big time. I hated reading it. The self-loathing of it all was enough to make me wish god was real so I could kick Him in the fucking teeth for causing this kind of pain in a man I knew to be better than almost every other man gracing this big, blue ball.

When you died, grandma took small solace in believing that you and Uncle Charlie would be reunited again. You weren’t the believer that he was. Your god was less defined, less ecclesiastical. Your god seemed to be the connection with… all of us? Nature?

We never really talked about it except that one time I tossed out the Book of Mormon. You weren’t angry that I chucked in the garbage so much as that I did it to prevent you from reading it. I was heavy into my own religious bullshit at the time and, as young believers often do, I believed my faith was the only faith.

You, on the other hand, were always curious. Always searching, but never really explaining what it was you were looking for. You told me you don’t pray to a god in heaven, but you “do pray, or meditate, or whatever you wanna call it,” when you’re alone. That sometimes you removed yourself from places just to do that very thing. You tried explaining that you didn’t need a god in a book when you can see god reflected in the world around you.

I don’t know if you expected to see Uncle Charlie again. When Jen died you didn’t feed me the usual line of “she’s in a better place,”

just,

“she’s gone and I am so sorry, mijo.”

I know that, save for memories and dreams, I don’t expect to see you again. When I die I expect - hope - that the energy that fills my soul will return to the stars and dance around the universe until the stuff of me is needed somewhere else. Not in some reincarnation way; in an energy never dies, it simply transforms sort of way.

That’s why I spend so much of my time looking up, honestly. I like to imagine that the stuff of you is floating around Orion while Uncle Charlie is lingering near the moon. I don’t know why, I just know that when I look at either I think of each of you and you seem not so far away.

I must have been about four when Grandma Lupe died. What was she? 103? 130? To the four year old mind those numbers are interchangeable. What I remember is that she was old, tiny, in a wheelchair, and her hands were soft and blue. Her skin was loose and cool to the touch.

By the time I was five my best friend in the world died. I didn’t know BeeBee was Jewish when we were playing on Augusta. It wasn’t til he died and I saw him with that funny hat in his casket. I thought I was Jewish, too. He was my best friend so, obviously we were the same. I wanted a hat to match his. I don’t remember when I learned it was actually called a yarmulke. He looked like a beautiful porcelain doll. I was too afraid to touch him because I was convinced I would break him.

And, of course, we shared a brick wall with a cemetery in those days.

Death was so much with us.

So were ghosts.

I had an asthma attack and you rushed me to the hospital. Once the doctors took care of me and sent us on our way I was surprised to see BeeBee on the elevator. I thought it was funny that I could see him and you couldn’t. The elevator still had a seat from the old timey days when it had an operator and I had to stop you from sitting on BeeBee’s lap.

There was a lot of death between Grandma Lupe’s time and yours. Gangs, drugs, old age, suicide, accidents, AIDS, and even malaria.

So much death in one lifetime.

You would think it would make me angry, or cynical.

I was angry for a time. When you died. We both know you didn’t have to go. You should be here to see your gaggle of nieces and nephews. You should be here to meet your son and daughters-in-law. We won’t ever know if you drove your motorcycle into that wall on purpose or because you were drunk. We do know that you got drunk on purpose, so…

The anger of you leaving when and how you did subsided long ago. It was easy to process once I accepted that you have so many of the same demons in your head that I have in mine. You have the same doubts and self-loathing that comes of being unwanted by the person who should love you by default.

In your case it was your father.

Where I chose not to have children in part out of fear of becoming my mother, you had me in spite of having one of the worst fathers in recorded history. And you excelled beyond even the most lofty aspirations. All of your broken bits made you the perfect man to raise me with all of my sharp edges.

But that’s not what this letter is about.

Forgiving you for leaving us the way you did was difficult work, but easier to do than forgiving you for how you left one of my siblings believing it was his fault. ‘If’ is one hell of a burden for someone left behind.

IF I had gone with him to the bar…

IF I had called him back…

IF…

He’d still be here.

Watching my brother, C- carry that around with him for years was a little harder to get over. You did that to him. You put your son in a position to carry an unfair, overwhelming burden.

A good father doesn’t do that to his son. Not on purpose, at least.

So I had to convince myself that there was no way you rode into that wall intentionally, right?

Right?

My brother is okay now. Married to a feisty little thing he’s been in love with most of his life. Seeing him happy is one of the best things I have ever seen.

You really should be here for that.

Tomorrow is Veterans Day. You always called me on that day. Which is funny to me because you served, too. I think it was an excuse to hear my voice.

I remember a call you made to me on September 11th. Yes, THAT September 11th.

I was not prepared for the sound of your voice to be so full of fear. You are the strongest man I have ever known so as I sat in that parking lot talking to you on the phone, hearing you almost broken, pleading with me not to re-enlist I found myself detaching from my own mind. I felt my fingers dig deep into my truck’s steering wheel. I wanted to hurt something, someone for what was done on that day.

I have to do SOMETHING, dad.

Not that, mijo. Not that.

You knew I was an idealist. And reckless. Not a good combination.

Honestly, how the hell did you stay sane raising me?

I didn’t re-enlist. Between you and me, I am not sure they would have even taken me back. Being invited to leave the military- not kicked out - just told, “we want you to stay, but we’re not sad you’re leaving,” is a weird breakup.

When Dick Cheney died last week I wished I could call you. I played the conversation in my head.

Dick Cheney died, dad.

I saw the news.

The world’s a better place.

Not for everyone, mijo. I’m sure his daughter is going to miss her daddy.

Yeah, well-

Yeah well nothing. A little girl is burying her daddy, whatever you think of him.

And I would have said something smartass and you would have reminded me that I was lucky not to be close enough to smack.

Then… well then we would have had the real talk. The hundreds of thousands dead because of him. The love of money guised as love of country. And my belief that, as I observe what has become of my beloved country, the terrorists have finally won.

And you would listen. The silence would hang between us for a moment that feels like an eternity.

You wouldn’t disagree with me. You would simply remind me that I am still here. I still have love and beauty in my life. You would say something like the type of government we all live under doesn’t change any of that. If it ever does change that it will be because I allow it to change me.

Your peace is your responsibility, mijo.

Why do you always have to be right, Viejo?

And you would laugh that big laugh of yours that fills the entirety any and every space you occupy. Then some part of my soul that I wasn’t even aware was lacking would fill to the brim again.

It’s a Sunday in Paris. I have been here a little over two (three) years now. I sometimes remember how surprised and impressed you were that I wanted to move here after Jen died. You, more than anyone, seemed to understand that I was adrift and needed something, anything, to steer by.

And Paris seemed like a good idea. You tried to help, but money was always tight.

So I changed course and joined the Air Force. And honestly, could you really see me sticking with Disney for any length of time? That insufferable little twat mouse and all his annoying friends; and so many children. So I went to Texas for six weeks instead.

But your boy did eventually make it to Paris. With the help - honestly, because of - a beautiful woman who somehow celebrates those parts of me that I have always felt I had to hide away. I’ll tell you all about her in another letter.

Within days of arriving in Paris one of your other sons showed up for a visit. We’d barely had time to put towels in the guest room when A- showed up with his little minion.

Dad, you should see her. Your granddaughter has the beautiful oval face of a Mexica warrior. She is fierce like one, too. Maybe a bit too surly for my brother’s liking, but she reminds me a lot of me. She’s a young girl with an old soul.

Nobody is born with an old soul. ‘Old soul’ is one of those misnomers that hides the reality; she grew up fast because she had to. My niece is being forced to grow up without a mama. A kid needs their mama and when they are forced to go without a part of them breaks and never heals quite right.

You saw that with me and I could see it immediately with her. This amazing little girl was carrying a burden without the ability to really articulate that so someone might help just a little. I tried to be for her what I needed at her age. We had one of the best talks, ironically enough, at Disney. Waiting for A- and my wife to get through one of those horrible rides that drops you so suddenly your stomach is still a few stories above you when you land. We sat - I on a bench and her on the ground - and talked about so many things.

My amazing niece let me in ever so slightly and I saw it.

I saw the broken bits and the beauty.

I wanted to scoop her up and assure her that it will all be better one day, but the more she talked the more I heard my wife remind me that sometimes a woman doesn’t need a man to fix anything, she just needs him to shut up and listen. So I got down on the ground with her and did just that.

Honestly dad, I caught myself hoping the other two would be in line for hours and hours. There is a part of me that is always going to live in that moment. She talked about, well, things that are hers to share so I will only say she gave me a part of herself that I cherish more than a thing that can be bought in any store. Even a Parisian store.

Throughout their time visiting - and especially after that little conversation I started to notice something beautiful.

I noticed that your son and your granddaughter are the best of you.

Don’t come at me with your, “I love all my kids equally,” bullshit. This isn’t that; this isn’t about quantity.

My baby brother is the father you would want any of us to be. He is the man who exceeds the lot of us. I watch him with my niece and think, “my god, he doesn’t even realize how good he is. He just thinks he’s doing what he’s supposed to and nothing more.” So many parents can’t even be bothered to do the minimum and here is your son creating a world for your granddaughter to thrive in.

And in the time since they’ve visited I have watched your granddaughter take flight and find her wings and her voice. You would be so amazed by her. My baby brother - your son - is raising a warrior queen and I wish you could see it.

I wish you could stand on the periphery with me and, from time to time, put a hand on A-’s shoulder and whisper, “I am so proud of you, of the man that you are, of the father you’ve become.”

I don’t really like babies. There’s nothing necessarily wrong with them, it’s just that, as someone who does not possess the parental inclination I find them rather dull. They don’t really do anything. They’re these demanding little human burritos who cry when they need food or their butts wiped.

Until they’re actually old enough to be influenced by their dear, sweet, AMAZING uncle Rudy I prefer them in photos than in person.

Of course, once those babies become kids I tend to be easily influenced myself. My niece, for example, has had a profound influence on me in ways she likely won’t fully comprehend for years.

Her story is ultimately hers to tell, but she is a fierce little thing. Truly an impressive human being. She looks the part, too. I remember thinking, she looks like that princess in that one picture we all saw growing up.

That picture is of the painting Grandeza Azteca by Jesus Helguera and growing up it was everywhere. The image depicts the Legend of Popocatépetl and Iztaccíhuatl.

The story goes something like this: the emperor sent Popocatépetl off to war, promising him Iztaccíhuatl as his wife when he returned. Iztaccíhuatl’s father presumed he would die in battle. Meanwhile, Iztaccíhuatl was told that Popocatépetl had died in battle when in fact he had not, and believing the news, she died of grief. When Popocatépetl returned to find his beloved dead, he took her body to a spot outside Tenochtitlan and kneeled by her grave in grief. The gods covered them with snow and changed them into mountains. Iztaccíhuatl’s mountain is called “Sleeping Woman” because it resembles a woman lying on her back, and it is often covered with snow. Popocatépetl became an active volcano, raining fire on Earth in blind rage at the loss of his beloved.

I wish I could tell you that I remembered that story from my childhood. And it is very likely I was told it at some point, but I still had to look it up. In my memory she was a warrior, not a princess. My niece is both.

I would never have bothered researching that story were it not for her.

It ended up being the beginning of a sort-of obsession for me. I wondered what else I didn’t know about my own ancestors. I know that chocolate, avocados, corn and a whole lot more came from them, but I wanted to learn about the parts erased.

As an atheist who loves religious mythology I started with a simple question: Who were our gods before christians destroyed them?

You guys, I discovered a pantheon that rivals that of ancient Greeks and the Norse Vikings. Creation stories, bickering gods, a robust and multi-layered after life.

I was initially angry that so much of our culture and rich history was all but erased and replaced with some white-washed version of a middle eastern hippy in order to exert control. But that gave way to excitement because I am preternaturally curious and have devoured anything I can find on our lost gods.

I also realized that I could not possibly be the only middle-aged Chicano who was never taught about our ancestors so…

I decided to create something. A book. At first. Then it bloomed into two books - one in English and the other in Spanish. Then it morphed into a series.

A series of kids books.

The First In a Series

So my nieces and nephews never have to wonder where they came from. Frankly, so I can learn more about my own ancestral history. And it won’t be confined to just the gods - although that could take up an entire lifetime. No, there will be ancient stories reimagined, cultural history.

This is just the beginning. If the gods are as kind as my curiosity is relentless, I’ll go further back—to the Olmecs, the Toltecs, and all the stories in between. My nieces and nephews deserve to know. And honestly, so do I.