I stare at the puddle of blood below me.  You ever wonder why blood is so goddam salty?  Like why the does it taste like that.  It's some disgusting .

I feel the fists pummeling into the sides of my face.  I try to hit back.  Big mistake.  More fists wail down on me.  Instead of trying to fight back soon I give up.  I let the bullies go ahead and beat me.  Go ahead.  Get your fill.  No point fighting now.  No point doing anything else but crawling up in a brawl and hoping that they'd get tired or somehow start feeling bad for beating up the little gay kid.

Neither really happens.

I know what you're thinking?  Gay bash?  That doesn't happen anymore.  That's a lie.  In Spanish Harlem...that happened all the time.

The only thing that stops the gay bash is when my best friend Mino shows up.  Mino is a big guy.  He's on the football team.  We were raised together in the same group home.  I'm sure the only reason he's helping me is because he feels bad.  He feels like he has to.  I don't have anyone.  I never really did.

He runs the guys off in a matter of minutes and helps me up.

“Why the you let those guys do that to you Jr?”

Mino helps me get up.  I can feel my face knotting up almost immediately.  Mino seems to notice because he doesn't look at my face.  He's handsome.  He's more handsome than I am that's for sure.  Where I am just 5'8”, Mino is 6'2”.  People tell me that I'm not ugly but that I need to 'fix my face'.  Dead .  That's what they say.  Jr, fix your face.  Mino says I always look worried.  He says it makes me look like a Mexican whose out in the field all day.  Mino's a little racist to Mexicans.  He's Colombian. They have this race war or some going on.  I like to say that I'm Panamanian because it's sounds nice but truth is I don't know what the I am.  I'm just a gay boy who gets beat up all the ing time.

My parents abandoned me when I was a kid.  See.  That's how my world works.  People get up and they ing abandon me.  That's just how it is.

“Yeah, I just put an X on my forehead.”

“You might as well have.”

Mino helps me get on my feet and gives me an eyebrow.  It's been 1 month since I came out of the closet.  Maricón---that's what Mino calls it.  It's spanish for .  Mino likes to shove it in my face that his parents taught him Spanish before they died.  They died in what was known as the Blood Holocaust.  It was a plague that swept over the nation killing a ton of people.  It took years for the world to really rebuild itself. No one knew where the plague came from or how it ended but it just...ended and things went back to normal.  Only thing is families were separated from one another, chaos took over the streets and there was the highest death toll in hisTed from one outbreak.  At least Mino knew that his parents died though.  For all I knew my parents just didn't want to waste their rations on a kid.

“I know what you’re thinking.  I shouldn't have done it.  I shouldn't have written that article in the school newspaper letting everyone know I'm gay.”

Mino looks at me with that sad look.  He always looks at me like that.  He is a popular guy and he has a lot of other friends.  He never looks at his other friends like he looks at me.  He looks at me as a charity case.  Sometimes I just feel like I'm someone getting in his way.  Mino would rather be out with the football guys bullting then having to walk around the school just to find out if his childhood friend is getting gay bashed by a bunch of bullies again.

“Joseph Craig is a closet ,” Mino says, “He just probably has a crush on you.  Everyone knows it.”

“You're not answering my question Mino.”

“Should you have written the article?  No.  No...because he's never going to see the article, Jr.  No matter how much you want to get his attention...he's never going to care. Roman's never coming back...ever...”

Mino tells me this once a day.  Roman is never coming back.  Ever.  Never.

Forever is such a long time.

***

My foster parents house smells like booze and .  My foster father makes my foster mother e on the street corner.  She brings her Johns home often and seems to give no s about anything else.  Her name is Harriette.  It was a bull name for a bull lady.  My mother's name was Janet.  I always imagined my mother to be some important lady.  Janet Park.  My dad was Tony Park.  I imagined him to be a pharmacist. 

Meanwhile in reality---my foster mother Harriette was high on drugs.  Even now she is laying down on the couch, legs spread wide open smelling like old cheese and dried up lube.

“Ted home?” I ask her as I walk in the apartment.

“ you,” Harriette responds.

That's code that she wanted to be left alone and probably code that Ted wasn't home. I was thankful Ted wasn't home.  My foster father was a weirdo to say the least.  Ever since I left the group home he'd just watch me.  He removed the door on the bathroom.  Many times I'd come out of the shower to see him just standing there, hands down his pants playing with his and looking on.  It never crossed the line but I wasn't an idiot.  It was only a matter of time before he got tired of Harriette.  It was only a matter of time before he turned his attraction to me.

I go in the room.  My room has Roman and Jr carved on the wood boards.  He did it before he left me.  Everyone leaves me.  It's been 2 years since he's been gone and it's ok.  It's completely ok.

“Well.  I'm sure there's no food here Harriette...again.  I haven't eaten for 2 days.  Just in case you cared...”

“ you.”

“So I'm going back out to roam the streets.”

“ off....”

“And I'll probably kill myself.”

“WHY ARE YOU STILL TALKING!”

She winces in pain.  I can tell she is upset that I turned off the light.  When she was high like that she hated any sort of light.  I turn off the light doing her a favor.  She wasn't always a .  I'd rather have been around her a million times more than her creepy husband but she did do drugs a lot.  Sometimes I figured drugs is just a sickness.  People couldn't help how they acted when they were on it. That's what I said to myself at least.  It kept me feeling less sorry for myself.

Not today though.

Today would be the day.  2 years ago the love of my life Roman Tuan left me.  He probably died.  His parents died in the Blood Holocaust as well.  I always figured he just killed himself.  So today was the best day.

Today was the day that I decided to die.

“Goodbye world.”

I'm at the Ward's Island bridge with El Barrio behind my back.  Looking back at East Harlem I never felt so ashamed.  Giving up isn't the hardest thing.  I'm not even sad.  I just feel an emptiness.  I just feel like now is the time.  I've lived for 16 years without ever finding an ounce of happiness outside of Roman.  And when he left things went right back to the same.

So I'm standing at the edge of the bridge.  I walk closer. 

“Goodbye world.”

“Goodbye world...”

I walk closer.  I turn at that moment and I see a figure standing at the end of the street.  He's dressed in black.  Damn.  I didn't want anyone to see me.  Oh well.  He's too far to stop me.  I jump at that moment.  I jump off the bridge and I feel a hand grab at me.

The hand holds me.  It keeps me dangling from over the bridge.

“You ing crazy?” he asks.

The voice.  There is something so familiar about the voice.  I look up at the person holding me from the bridge.  It's the figure in black.  How the did the person move so fast?  How did the person run almost a block in a matter of seconds?  It was...impossible.

“Let me go.”

“I'm not going to do that...Jr.”

That's when I look up and my heart stops.  The person who saved me is none other than him.  The love of my life.

Roman.

***

Roman takes me to Mino's place.  Mino was adopted by a family.  It's not a rich family.  He has a ton of other adopted brothers and sisters.  They are struggling, but it's nothing compared to my foster parents.  His new parents are nice and welcoming.  His new brothers and sisters are kind and sweet. The kids in the house crowd around Roman and I when we get into Mino's place.  Mino takes us to the bedroom and shuts the door.

Roman looks the same.  His skin is the color of caramel and his eyes are always squinting like he just saw a flash of bright light.  He is still very thin, skinny guy but tall and lanky.  It works for him.  Looking at him now he's dressed in a black sweater.  I wonder what he was doing out in the middle of the night.  It had taken me hours until I got the courage to go to the bridge.  Was he following me the entire time? 

“You tried to do what?” Mino asks.

The concern is there.  Roman hasn't talked to me since the bridge.  A part of me wonders if he brought me over to Mino's house so Mino can chew me out.  Roman must have a good memory knowing where Mino lived.  After Roman had been gone for two years I didn't expect it. 

I don't answer.

Roman answers instead, “He tried to kill himself.”

And I didn't.  But how?  How the was Roman able to save me?  I want to ask that question and more but right now my mind just goes blank.  It is taking a while for me to register the fact that I'm still ing alive.

Mino looks over at Roman, “You stopped him?”

“Just in time.”

Mino looks over a me, “What the were you thinking?”

I don't respond.  What's the point of responding in a situation like this?  Mino was my best friend.  If anyone knew what I'd been through in my life he knew.  He knew exactly what I had been through.

Roman looks over at me, “Are you...ok, Jr?”

“You left him for 2 years.  Thanks for saving him but I think you've done enough,” Mino barks at that moment.

Mino is my guard dog.  He always has been.  The fact that he's attacking Roman right now seems to be something I'd always knew would happen if he saw Roman again.  Every time I brought up Roman it was like a curse to him.  Roman had loved me.  Roman had left me.  Now Roman was mysteriously back again the moment that I needed him the most.

Roman looks over at me, “If I leave...will you try to hurt yourself again?”

I don't answer.

My mouth is dry.  Shock has taken over from seeing Roman again.  Why answer?  Why say anything at all?  No.  I just stay quiet.  I just look at him for long periods of time.  I feel like if I blink he'll disappear again.

“He'll be fine,” Mino states, “I got him.  I always got him.”

“No I won't,” I respond.

My voice Is stern and strong.  I won't be ok if Roman leaves.  I never want him to leave again.  I look at him.  I remember all the times we used to sit together.  I remember all the lessons that we used to talk to each other about.  The world was a better place then, when he was in my life.  The world was kinder back then.

Roman gets up.  My eyes are desperately following him as he walks to the door.  He goes to the door and opens it.  Then his thin, slim fingers unfold.  They reach out back towards me.  They stretch out and offer me a hand.

“I know some place we can go...” he offers.

Mino looks over at him, “ no.” Then desperately he looks over at me, “Jr.  Don't fall for this again.  Don't go into his fantasy again.  You don't want to go into depression after he leaves.  You've been doing good without this motherer.”

“With all due respect Mino, no the he hasn't,” Roman replies sharply, “He just tried to kill himself today.”

“Where are you taking him?”

“I want to show him another place.  A different place.”

“You don't get to just show up after two years and take him anywhere,” Mino responds, “You don't get to.  You don't get to just jump in and out of someone's life.  Jr.  JR!”

Mino is reacting because I've placed my hands in Roman's hands.

“Take me there,” I tell Roman, “Wherever it is...”

Roman looks back at Mino, “I'll have him back before dawn.”

***

The night is cold.  It's mid-October.  The fall leaves scatter among the streets of East Harlem.  We are heading deeper into Harlem.  I want to pay close attention to where we are going but I don't.  I'm looking at Roman.  There is something...different about him.  I can't put my hand on it.  Roman's face used to get flushed all the time.  His caramel skin would turn hues of burgundy especially when he was around me.  That didn't happen now.  His skin stays the same color.  His eyes seem different as well.  His eyes were once a dark brown but now they are a lighter brown.  Contacts maybe?  I'm not sure.

“Where are we going?” I ask Roman.

“A place.”

He's being creepy as .  I have to admit it.  Then again I just tried to ing kill myself.  It's not like I'm someone who gives a what happens to me.

Still Roman literally fell off the face of the planet.  The cops looked for him for a while but they gave up.  His foster mother cried for a bit but then moved out of town.  Soon everyone just stopped talking about Roman Tuan.  It was almost like everyone forgot he existed...everyone but me.

“Why'd you leave me Roman?”

He looks over at me.  His eyes aren't looking at my eyes though.  For some strange reason his eyes are looking at my neck.  Almost like a bug runs up his spine he jerks back to attention looking out of the window and away from me.

“So much has happened Jr,” he tells me, “We were kids back then.  We aren't kids now.  You turn 17 in two days don't you.”

“Yeah.  Why?”

“That's old enough.”

“Old enough for what?”