ORANGE MESSIAHS by Scott A. Sonders (books to read this summer .txt) 📕

It was just, as Vicki says, his “je ne sais quoi.”

But Ernesto was a bigot. He wanted to “marry right.” And not just “some half-Mexican parking lot owner.” He had what he called “big plans.” We had a very good time while it lasted. Almost every day for three months. That ended last June. Ernesto got a scholarship for graduate school at Columbia. A political science major. I’m sure he’ll parley his own assets and his father’s connections into something serious someday.

This brings my love life almost up to date. I recently had what turned out to be a “three day one-night-stand.” On my part, it was an accident. I’m still learning. It felt like love for about forty-eight hours. He was a district supervisor for the department store I work for. He told me he’d been relocated from back East, permanently. He told me his name was Robby Carlson. He told me was single. He lied three out of four times.

Vicki’s manager knows Robby in the same way that I do, only from a year ago. He tells every woman that he wants to sleep with the exact same story. It works. He really is a district sales supervisor, but his real last name is Carlucci and he lives, “permanently,” in New Jersey with his wife and two kids.

But, he comes to L.A. every six months for the sales training seminars that he gives for the company on a rotational basis, in six of their biggest locations. I guess this was one of those “live and learn” situations that everyone seems so fond of talking about.


December 21st:

Tomorrow is my birthday. I’ll be nineteen. But I’m still going to work. I won’t get paid, days-off for birthdays until I get seniority, and I’m still technically part-time.
I’ve been skipping some days between my journal entries. Most of the time there isn’t that much to write about. I like it, though. I enjoy writing. But I’m not so certain it has the “therapeutic value” that my shrink claims it has. She says to give it time, that I’m too impatient. – I don’t know. Maybe.

I’ve been having a hard time focusing my thoughts. I get distracted. I always have, ever since I can remember. Sometimes it’s worse than others. Lately, it’s been the worst ever. I’ll think about something I’m supposed to be thinking about, like at work or especially at school. But then I’ll start thinking about something else. And that something else gets me thinking about another something else. Pretty quickly my mind is racing. My pulse picks up. My breathing gets tight. Then I start to think that I won’t be able to stop thinking. I get scared. My heart starts beating faster. My head swims.
Sometimes it feels like everything inside will just move faster and faster until I burst. It feels like I’m going to die. My therapist says that writing in my journal is a physical acting out of emotional catharsis. That these are just bouts of anxiety induced attention deficit disorder. That I’m going to be okay.

I don’t feel okay. I called Carlos. After all, it’s his birthday too. He’s also going to be nineteen. But his thoughts don’t race. In fact they move methodically. Well, most of the time. It doesn’t seem like you could kill someone and still have your thoughts move methodically unless you were a sociopath.

Carlos isn’t a sociopath. I doubt he so much as moves his finger without somehow thinking about every possibility first. Even when he knows what he will do will turn out wrong, he’s still thought about it, in minute methodical detail.

When he killed the guy that raped me, Carlos thought it out carefully. He can do that. He can think carefully but at lightning speed. He killed that guy knowing the possible consequences. But he didn’t care about consequences. He cared more about what the act would symbolize to everyone. He cared about what it would symbolize to himself.

He lied at his parole hearing. He told them that he hadn’t considered the consequences because he was young and rash and stupid, and that now he saw things more clearly.
He said that he had learned from his mistakes. He told the parole board what they wanted to hear. He had to.

Carlos is a butterfly. If you put a butterfly in a cage, the metal bars will break its fragile wings. Cages destroy butterflies. I’m glad that Carlos thinks too methodically. That he told the Parole Board what they needed to hear. I’m glad that he is free again. In spite of the other “stuff” that we sometimes have between us, I love Carlos more than anything on this earth. He’s a good man.

I don’t believe in the death sentence but there are exceptions for every rule. This was one of them. Carlos did what he had to do. He had to kill that guy. Raping me was the same as raping Carlos. What my brother did was an act of self-defense.

Carlos told me that he has followed up on the “blind date” that he’s been working on for me since Friday night. Now when he does things like that, against my express wishes not to, that’s when I hate him. Anyway, he’s apparently become good buddies, in the last few months, with some guy who parks his car on our lot. This guy, this friend of Carlos, works downtown as “a paid intern” across the street from Carlos, at an architectural firm. He’s graduating from UCLA in a few weeks so I guess that makes him about twenty-two.

Carlos says that they’ve “had a few beers together, learned a lot about each other, gotten pretty close.” He says the guy has been telling him about some “fuckin’ funny ideas about how to beat the Draft.” Carlos didn’t take enough classes last semester to be considered full-time, so now his student deferment is about to be rescinded. He has no interest in having a free tour of Vietnam, compliments of Uncle Sam.

Carlos thinks because he likes this new best friend of his that I’ll like this new best friend of his. He’s told this guy, Jonah, about me, but has never shown him a photograph or described me physically. He’s done this so as not to influence the guy one way or the other. That way, if he likes me after he meets me, it’ll be because of his own feelings and not because of a picture. This sounds a little hare-brained to me because if the guy knows that Carlos and I are twins, even if it’s only fraternal, then we must look at least somewhat alike. At least, I hope this guy is intelligent enough to know that a brother and sister can’t be identical twins and isn’t slyly expecting that I’m a raving beauty because Carlos is so damned handsome. If he thinks that, then he’s sure going to be disappointed.

I also don’t get why this guy would trust what is obviously a very biased opinion of my character and personality. I mean, a guy’s sister? What’s Carlos supposed to say, “Hey friend, to tell you the truth, my sister is fat and ugly, has major zits, no brains and a wet blanket personality – but hey, I know you’re gonna like her?” Give me a break!

Carlos knows I absolutely detest the concept of blind dating. So he’s come up with a scheme. The guy is presumed to come to the store at a time that I’m not supposed to know in advance. He’ll know only that I work there. It’s assumed he should be able to pick me out of the crowd merely because “it’s meant to be.” And I’m supposed to like him without knowing he’s been sent by Carlos. I’m not perfectly certain, but no matter how well thought out, this sounds like another one of those fantasies that my brother actually seems to believe in. Anyway, I promised I’d go along with the plan. It’s been all been worked out so no one has anything to lose. If I don’t like him or he doesn’t pick me out of the line-up, so to speak, no one gets hurt. No expectations. No disappointments. No problem.


December 23rd:

It’s 5 A.M. I can’t sleep. But I’ve got to be showered, looking good and at work in only four hours. I missed a major journal entry for my birthday yesterday because it’s the second night in a row that I’ve been with Jonah. He’s asleep in the bed and I’m sitting at the kitchen bar writing this under a reading lamp so I don’t disturb him. It’s probably still too early to rate this relationship, but maybe “three times is the charm.” It feels really real. All I can say is my brother called this one right on. I’d have never believed Carlos could be so in tune with what I like. I’ll never doubt him again, not for a minute.

What I just don’t get is that this guy is technically not even my type. I’m partial to handsome men. Vicki, probably just being nice, says she thinks Jonah looks “dreamy.” But I don’t think he’s even close to handsome. His head is too big for his body, and his body is too short for his legs. He’s all legs, maybe six feet plus an inch or two. I like men that are built strong. Jonah seems thin and ungainly, even compared to me. He looks, I don’t know, frail or lanky. And I like men with black hair and blue or green eyes, the perfect combination. Most girls wouldn’t admit this kind of thing, maybe it’s weird or something, but I like guys who look like my brother. He has almost black hair and blue eyes, and is very muscular—all the girls, all my life, have been totally infatuated with Carlos.
Jonah has dishwater blonde hair, kind of straight and stringy. His nicest features are his eyes, which are brown but beautiful with thick long eyelashes, and his hugely oversized mouth with very kissable lips set around poster-perfect teeth that look like they were used in toothpaste commercials. And he is sooo kissable!

Aside from that, which I know should be enough for any girl, I don’t know why I’m so completely attracted by him. Okay, I admit we have “chemistry” that tastes better than a box of See’s chocolates. When he approached me for the first time, and I didn’t even know who he was yet, I became embarrassed after just a minute of standing next to him, because I suddenly became uncomfortably aware that I was wet. And on the very day of my birthday. What a gift!

He made some clever small-talk with me after coming into the store. He admitted having looked all over but, as soon as he spotted me. He just knew I was the sister that Carlos had talked about so nicely – and “deservedly.” I remember every word he first said to me. Some of it, if I wrote it down and read it to a stranger out of context, might sound silly, but to me it all came out just perfect.

He seemed so well-bred, in a unique sort of way. He seemed sensitive, like Frank was, yet hugely sexy, somehow, like Ernesto was. And boy is this guy well-read. And that’s with about the best sense of humor I’ve ever heard. If nothing else, I can see why Carlos adores this guy. They must have already had some terrific conversations. And I’m sure that now, they’ll have even