Somewhere Between the Light
Andrés N. Ordorica
Heat is something that is a distant memory to him. Fever dreams. Fires burning in the stone oven of his late grandfather’s house. Lighting the cigarette for a handsome man in a dark alley outside a club knowing he would see his unclothed body later. That time he was drunk off summer wine and watched a tower block burn, joining the chorus of sunstroke revellers turned shocked witnesses, all shouting:
—Get out. Fire! It’s on fire!
As residents from the other side of the tower block, stood on balconies unsure of what was causing the commotion, unaware of their neighbours fleeing and the smoke and the utter chaos of it all.
He waited as long as he could, long enough to see the dozens of fire trucks race down the park lane, to see an ambulance helicopter land on a makeshift pad in the grassy knoll. He never found out if anyone died, didn’t remember to check the newspaper the following morning when he was sleeping off the hangover and possible sun poisoning, still forgot to when meeting up with friends for brunch later that day. All these memories of heat lingering like morning mist, hazy and quick to disappear as each day goes on as he traverses this foreign city, while trying to make new memories of heat.
Today he is visiting a park once again – two to be exact. First, a park dedicated to Spain, former coloniser of this country. At least that it was the internet tells him. He enters through a small gate near the public bathroom and happens upon a sculpture garden where a giant green copper hand rests in front of him. Rises actually, from the ground to collect rain, collect the sun, collect the treasures forgotten by Cortés. Nowadays, dogs rest obediently half in shade and half in the early morning light. He wonders what plans they have today. To fetch, to sleep, to bark if only to remind others that they’re here, that they’re still alive.
He continues on to the second park. This one for Mexico gifted by Mexico in its capital city. It is bright and alive with the promise of a day just starting. Men sweep paths and water thirsty plants. Lovers embrace in what looks like a last goodbye but what is just love that has yet to grow stale. He remembers what that was like. He had it once. Was the ever-obedient lover, always waiting somewhere between the light and fading sun, at the door like some wistful pet as rays from the golden hour peaked through the living room window. Willing his owner to come home.
He used to think love was letting someone hurt you until they were forced to say sorry. Until the silence was too much, until love felt the same way that an open wound freshly bandaged felt like which is to say sore but with at least the promise of future healing.
—Con permiso, señor.
—¿Sí?
—¿Quieres firmar nuestra petición y donar a la Amazonía?
He nods sheepishly to indicate “no” and offers a lame excuse of not having any money on hand. Not wanting to actually go into how he is not from Mexico City, even though a donation would not be dependent on residency, but still he has walking to do and is not in the mood for further conversations.
He once watched a docuseries on the Amazon and was frightened to learn how piranhas swim in packs and can strip the flesh from an animal within seconds. One that fatally falls into the murky waters while swinging from the trees above. He knew it would happen. Understood enough about film editing and how sound mixers use music to know that all signs were leading to this eventuality, but still it scared him all the same when it happened, as the chaotic music grew louder and the water splashes masked the slaughter. As a body was destroyed, left almost to evaporate like mist, like heat, like memories, life a life forgotten.
His name was Lucás. The man he used to wait for obediently. He was from Santiago and was on a work placement for one year in London at the same time Roberto was pursuing a playwriting post grad. They met randomly bumping into each other on the platform at Sloane Square. Their start, however, was not a sweet meet cute:
—¡Chinga a tu madre!
Was the first thing Lucás said as his morning latte went flying all over his blue suit and yellow silk tie. Both were at fault. One was rushing about reading the morning news on a smartphone mid walk while the other was stationary, deep in a play text just purchased from the Royal Court’s bookstore. Roberto was manifesting a future production in the hallowed halls of that London theatre which he visited earlier that morning to inquire about any vacancies at its café. You have to start somewhere.
Coffee spilt on the pages of his reading material when he looked up at and saw the most handsome angry face looking back at him. When Lucás registered Roberto as equally good looking and a possibility he quickly changed his tune. Made up for his earlier lack of politeness.
—I’m so sorry guapo. I need to watch what I’m doing or else this phone will be the death of me.
—Well, I need to not always have my head in a book, I guess?
The first time they fucked should have been a sign for Roberto. Lucás could only come if Roberto agreed to choke him while he penetrated him without a condom, or at least that was how Lucás explained his proposition. It felt wrong for the quiet Roberto, like something you’d report to the police, or at least tell your girlfriends about over coffee, unsure if you were being too stuck up and prissy, hoping their input might offer clarity. But he did it anyway, let it happen to him, let himself participate in that weird ritual. Gripped tightly around his neck, saw the tense anger in this man’s eyes, listened to the aggressive language, as he let this man use him, all because he longed for some company, some attention.
Even though Lucás had moments of sweetness, things always felt tense to Roberto like his lover would over boil at any given moment. But like man’s best friend, Roberto was tethered to him, nonetheless, always waiting for any indication that he was loved, that he was important.
The last time he saw Lucás was when the stock market crashed in Latin America. He came home to their Shoreditch flat in an angry temper and very drunk. Roberto was reading a translation of some Eastern European theatre company’s latest devised show – he smiled when he looked up at his lover. Roberto had not registered the mood of the room. He had a feeling that Lucás was there before even actually seeing him. Something told Roberto that he was being watched, but he thought it was happening in a flirtatious way, one of the infrequent moments of playfulness that he always cherished. But it wasn’t one of those moments. Far from it. What proceeded when he finally looked up landed Lucás in jail and then with a deportation notice and eventual expulsion from the country. It also sent Roberto to hospital for two weeks.
Roberto could not remember seeing the bottle of half-drunk whisky in Lucás’s hand nor could he remember it swiftly coming down on his own head or cracking his skull open or the blood or the pain or screaming:
—Get your head out of fucking books you faggot! Don’t you know we’re fucked?
It was a concerned neighbour who broke down the door and stopped Lucás and saved Roberto’s life. But of course, Roberto did not remember any of it, he just read the details in a report shared with him by a kind case worker. At the time all he had were those words and the accounts given by that good Samaritan whose name he never managed to learn. But that was long ago and those memories have started to grow more and more distant.
He follows the road out of the park onto a busy looking avenue. Roberto has six hours before he needs to head to the airport. Before he needs to return home. Before he needs to move on from this place. A place that all his life, he was told was his, but in which he only has ever come to as a visitor, as an outsider. Hoping that he would find a part of himself that he lost long ago. Possibly generations ago, through distance, through borders and visas and citizenship, but still he came with the purpose of unearthing that unfathomable sense of belonging. He has six more hours to find out what it means.
He registers the noises of hunger coming from his stomach and decides he has done enough walking for now. Food is more pressing than sightseeing. The last supper. What will it be? Something easy and not fussy. He is tired of sitting in restaurants on his own.
He happens upon a street vendor not far from the two parks. He orders a plate of tacos al pastor and a hibiscus lemonade. The lady calls him “mijo” over and over again and he feels a pang of loneliness. Part of him wishes his family were with him to share this return to the motherland, but also, he knows that this was something he needed for just himself.
He tells this lady about his family, how his mother comes from one part of Mexico and his father another part, how he was born in the United States, but now lives in Europe. He tells her how he is now an immigrant just like his parents. She smiles at this and welcomes him “home”. Gives him extra tacos. Looks intently at him and makes him feel seen. Not just with eyes, but with her soul, acknowledging his existence.
Roberto finishes the meal, pays up, says his hearty goodbyes to this kind strange woman and continues walking for just a bit more. He enters a small church on a small street near a small and quiet park in Roma – one final park. Third one today. Holy trinity. Rule of three and all that. He thinks of his mother and all the women in his family as he lights a candle in the sacristy of the most holy mother: La Virgen de Guadalupe. None of these women know how things exactly ended with Lucás or know of the hospital stay. He did not want to cause them pain, did not want to worry them, did not want them to fly halfway around the world to be with him. What good would that have been? He was bed ridden and pumped up on morphine. He could not have played tour guide. Could not have made sense of any of it for them. So, he kept it hidden from them in a series of lies; a made-up conference, somewhere forgotten in continental Europe, and opted for phone calls over the usual video chats for a few weeks. At least until he was healed enough to lie once more and say he hit his head on a low-hung roof of some non-existent pub that he visited with some non-existent group of friends in some made-up part of the city.
Coming to Mexico was a means of adding some joy and lightness to his life. He needed to feel again and to remember that life is more than just pain and loss. Needed to feel something which he was not able to put his finger on, but knew he needed. Heat. Yes, he needed to feel heat. Heat and light work in tandem to produce the effect of warmth. He came here because he longed for some sort of warmth.
All week, while trapezing around tree covered avenues, listening to a chorus of Spanish and car horns and bird song, while giving and receiving kind smiles, he was reminded that he too can be a light. Can offer warmth to another person, can be the heat he needs, can matter in this world, can be more than his past pains.
He offers a prayer to the most Holy Mother and then quietly exits the church back onto the quaint street and continues walking. He’ll do so for a few more hours, and when he is ready, when he has gotten all he can from his city, when the time of day is somewhere between the light and fading sun, he will hail a taxi, head to the airport and leave a more healed person, a fuller man. The light will be within him and so he will be his own warmth.
Originally published in Gutter #22 (buy)
Andrés N. Ordorica is a queer Latinx writer based in Edinburgh. He is the author of the poetry collection At Least This I Know and novel How We Named the Stars. He has been shortlisted for the Morley Lit Prize, the Mo Siewcharran Prize and the Saltire Society’s Poetry Book of The Year. In 2024, he was selected as one of The Observer’s 10 Best Debut Novelists.