The Heart is a Poor Judge Ch. 02

It never felt like work to Miguel, maybe because the informal aspects of running were already part of his daily practice. People fascinated him, especially new people, and although he remained closest with his friends from church, their experiences were not varied enough to keep him interested. Call it a side effect of his social inclination, or call it the hard-earned fruits of his labor: He was ultimately elected and served an unprecedented two-term stint as official leader of the people. Here was Miguel: prominent politician, important church member, central midfielder and advanced-placement student. His life occurred in a hundred thousand flashes, explicitly clear in the moment, impossible to construe as the months tallied. Later on, he would reflect that it had been for the best, because there had been no time left over to think about himself.

At fifteen, Miguel entered high school, where it became clear that his coveted title would no longer come easily. In fact it would not come at all-not right away, because Miguel was a freshman. Item 9B of Miguel's cherished, spiral-bound copy of 70th Avenue Public High School Student Council Code of Conduct barred freshmen from running for that highest of offices. This news, delivered courtesy of bold typeface on cheap printer stock, dealt a heavy blow.

The first student council meeting was held under a stained and sagging dropped ceiling at a vast round table: two guided reading tables shoved together, leaving a functionless, doughnut-channeling hole in the middle. As he sat down, Miguel noticed that the boy to his left bore photocopies of an annual schedule, soon to be passed around. It seemed his boy was in the know, so Miguel nudged him with his elbow, accused item 9B with his index finger and asked, "Why is this a rule?"

"It's just the way things have always been done." The boy adjusted his glasses, glanced around the table and began counting the copies before him.

Miguel scoffed. "That doesn't make any sense at all." He did not mean to sound rude, and the boy apparently hadn't taken it that way, tossing Miguel a quick smile and a nod to indicate his sympathy.

Having presided over a previous student body was certainly a leg-up, but Miguel quickly learned, through a whirlwind of cross-table introductions, that he shared his distinction among at least three other students, also incoming freshmen from feeder schools.

The boy to his left remained mostly silent and fully seated during all the socializing, but after a few minutes, he stood, cleared his throat, and everyone became quiet. "Right, so, I'm Daniel Lin. I'm a junior, and I was Student Body Vice President last year. Most of you know that Nicholas, last year's president, is preparing to start his first semester at Rutgers. He will be missed." A few knowing glances were exchanged at this point. "Mr. Lewis had the flu, so I'll be leading things today. Any last words before we get started?"

Someone directly across the table from him raised their hand. "Hi Daniel Lin, I'm Meghan Tuttle." She spoke with the cavalier lilt of someone producing an inside joke—it was obvious they knew each other. "Will you be running for Student Body President this year?"

Miguel felt a warm hand on his shoulder as Daniel Lin leaned coolly to one side. "Of course."

Elections were to be held in less than a month. Miguel knew that the only sensible course of action would be to get an in with Daniel Lin. After that first meeting, Miguel met him at the door and asked how he could maximize his involvement as a freshman, adding, "I can tell that freshmen mostly get kicked around here. Do they ever even hold office?"

There was that sideways smile again, full of charm, and suddenly Miguel understood how Daniel had secured the title of VP as just a sophomore. "Not usually, no."

"But we're technically allowed to run, right? For everything except president?"

They were now alone in the room. Daniel just stood there smiling for a moment, hands in his pockets. "If you want to get more involved, meet me here a day before next week's meeting. Same time. We'll chat about my campaign."

In the days that followed, Miguel could hardly contain his anticipation. He attended church services and activities on Sunday and Wednesday, where his interest was feigned—well enough, he hoped, that his parents wouldn't notice as he pondered over the various roles he might be asked to play. There was, of course, only one role that would satisfy Miguel, and he felt he stood a good chance of convincing Daniel.

70th High's bounds were theoretically finite, and the two boys' eyes met exactly twice between classes that week. Miguel shuddered that they would exchange only quick smiles in these moments—clearly time better spent formulating an unbeatable stratagem. When the moment finally came, after the two got settled under the droopy ceiling, Daniel was candid: "I am in a good position to take top office this year, and I'm not going to stop until I get it. How would you like to help?"


"I would like to be your running mate."

Daniel burst into laughter. "Sorry, that spot is filled."

"By who?"

"Meghan Tuttle. We agreed on it a long time ago." He paused. "Wait...did you actually think VP was on the table?"

Miguel hid both his outrage and his shame. "No, not really. Listen, I will do whatever it takes. If you want to be president, I'll focus on it every waking minute. I've made myself look good before, and I can certainly make you look good now. I assume you're taking the mass-appeal route, right? I'll make it happen." He thought quickly. "I brought a notebook with me. Let's write down the details of your platform, then come up with some ways to spin it for different crowds. I'll start talking to people right away."

They worked for over two hours, bleeding ink into many pages of Miguel's notebook, outlining speech possibilities, mapping out the myriad cliques, their associated sentiments, and coaxing the often blurry lines which divided them into focus. When it finally came time to leave, Daniel turned to him and said, "This is so much fun, isn't it?"

Miguel looked him dead in the eyes. "There's nothing I care about more than this."

Daniel's brown eyes stayed trained on him for an extra second. The two stood and began packing up. "Hey, listen," he said, clearing his throat. "I'll let you know if anything changes, okay?"

It wasn't clear to Miguel what this meant—until things did change. Daniel appeared out of nowhere as Miguel exited biology the next morning. "What do you think of Lin-Gonzalez? Has a nice ring to it, right?"

"What are you talking about?"

"Tuttle wants top office, so she's running her own campaign. I told her no hard feelings. She'll be more of a challenge than Layton. Keep us on our toes."

Miguel couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"I'd rather go with someone I've known longer," Daniel continued. "I'm taking a risk with you."

"That's not true," said Miguel. "I know you think you are, but you're wrong. I am not a risk."

And so it became Tuttle-Cushman, Layton-Park and Lin-Gonzalez, all three campaign teams clawing for the fattest slice of approval from the rest of the school. It wasn't a fair fight. Greg and Kyung-soo were both seniors who were naturally relatable, but they were also lazy. It was Meghan and her running mate who gave Miguel and Daniel a run for their money, but by the eleventh hour, they too had fallen fatally behind. On the night before the school-wide vote, the two boys met up in Daniel's room, as had become their custom, and realized suddenly that there was nothing left to do.

"Well then. I guess I should be at church."

Daniel eyed him. "Have your parents been giving you grief?"

"No, but only because I've rarely missed."

"It's weird to have church on a Wednesday, isn't it?"

Miguel laughed. "Maybe to you. You don't go to church at all."

Daniel smirked, pushing his glasses up the steep bridge of his nose. "I don't think I would feel welcome in church. Especially in Mormon church."

Miguel shrugged. "You might be surprised—"

"I don't think so," Daniel said. His voice went cold. "There's something you should know about me. It's this thing that I've struggled with. A secret I'll have to keep forever. I've only told Meghan. No one else. I'm sorry to spring this on you. It's just that I want you to have one more chance to...I don't know. After tomorrow, you're stuck with me." Daniel Lin, whom Miguel had only ever known as all-business-at-all-times, now bore his entire soul. "Look, if you know what I'm talking about, please just say so."

"I know what you're talking about." Let there be no doubt: Miguel had been consciously hiding himself for some time. He had long known the moment would come for him to emerge, if just a little bit, to someone, somewhere. It could not have occurred before now, and now, looking into Daniel's dark eyes, he knew it could not wait a second longer. "When you're the bishop's son," he said, "you are obligated to feel welcome in church, or at least pretend that you do, even if you don't." He thought for a minute. "Everyone at church acts like it's the most welcoming place on earth, but it's not," he said, then added, "not for people like you and me."

Miguel remembered the seconds that followed down to each shift in Daniel's gaze, back and forth from Miguel's right eye to his left, the lifting of hand to face in a slow arc, an eternity, as Daniel pushed up his glasses once more. Daniel, who was all of a sudden undeniably, irresistibly handsome (but how could Miguel not have noticed this before?), dropped his scrutiny to the crotch of Miguel's pants. Daniel's fingers landed on Miguel's thigh, glided along the denim seam, then stopped an inch short of their mark. Nothing happened. Neither boy summoned the courage to move forward. It was better that way. Daniel's bedroom was not secure and his doting mother often poked her head in; should they ever be caught, the consequences would be unthinkable.

After the election, the invincible duo was officially awarded the titles they knew had been coming. A party was held in the evening, spilling out of the dingy student council room and halfway down the hall. When it was over, they left together and took the concrete steps down to the 70th Street Station platform. Daniel's parents were gone, visiting family in Shanghai. Miguel marveled at the unrestricted life of his friend, permitted to live as king, adult at seventeen, completely on his own in a 19th-floor luxury condo. That night would allow Miguel the smallest taste of such a life, and a much larger taste of Daniel, who, after next to no convincing, entered Miguel fully, deeply, between the gray jersey-knit sheets of his twin bed.

Years later, Miguel would decide that he had reacted poorly (to be specific: non-strategically) to his parents' concern. It escalated steadily over the next eighteen months, by which time general complaints were submitted on the regular, on behalf of both parties.

It was lucky that Daniel's parents travelled frequently, but they still spent more time at home than away, leaving the boys' private moments in short supply. Sometimes, when the stakes were too high, Miguel and Daniel suspended their intimacy for as long as a few weeks. Neither resented these times of rest all that much. They were extremely protective of their public lives, and both kept frantic, distracting schedules. Miguel carried on with soccer, where he remained a middling but cheerful player, and Daniel showed up to the most important games, proudly airing his support for his prized second-in-command. That was all it needed to mean to anyone else. At least for Miguel, bolting across the field, eyes meeting for an instant with those of his clean-cut companion in the stands, an sense of deep intimacy persisted even when it could not be tangibly expressed.

One evening, as Christmas drew near, Miguel's father barged into his room and announced, "You don't have enough friends who are part of the faith."

"That's because most of my friends are in student council."

"You have friends of all kinds," he corrected. "And I'm okay with that. It's what you're good at—good enough to be trying harder with your friends from church. You're a natural leader, Miguel, and I know exactly where you get that from. There are plenty of ways to put your leadership skills to work at church. Ways that are more worthy...and more righteous."

"The student body is a completely worthy place to put my leadership skills. At least as worthy as the church."

"See, right there. That's the problem. First, it's all of your absences from church events because of student council. And now, I can hear it in the way you're speaking. You covet your interest in politics more than you covet your relationship with God."

Miguel shrugged.

"Miguel," he demanded, "please tell me I am wrong."

"Fine, you're wrong. Whatever you want to hear."

Flames danced behind the bishop's corneas. Miguel braced himself in anticipation of his father's strike, clean across the face and straight back to his childhood, but it never came. Instead arrived his solemn dictation: "This is not a game, Miguel. Your utter servitude to Heavenly Father is not a game. Misconstrue it and you will not be saved."

"Okay," said Miguel. "I'm sorry. I will try harder."

Without another word, his father left the room.

He did try harder, but by that time, no matter how many smiling faces met him at church, the message was loud and clear to Miguel: You are rejected. This clarity arose in part out of the church's extraordinary obsession with marriage. Everyone talked about it. One of the most beautiful contracts ever to be handed down was constantly under threat, strangled at the filth-covered hands of secular society. Still a few months shy of seventeen, He found himself steeped in the subject, along with other members his age, almost all of whom embraced matrimony as a sort of mysterious miracle (or was it miraculous mystery?) with which they would, with any luck at all, soon engage. For them, it could not happen soon enough. But for Miguel? He was coming quickly to terms with the futility of his own tragic, humiliating attempts at worship, furiously diverting his love and commitment toward an insatiable deity that did not love him back.

One spring evening, three days before his seventeenth birthday, he directed his fury elsewhere. Rosa had since left home to live with Lucia and Lucia's husband in Argentina. His father stayed late at the church, so Miguel and his mother ate dinner alone. Nothing about it was premeditated; the moment simply arrived, unanticipated, and he recognized it immediately for what it was—time to confess. "Mom," he said to her, "there is something I need to tell you."

She set down her knife and fork, chewed for several more seconds, swallowed and then looked at him. "What is it?"

"Daniel and I are in love. We have been together for almost two years. We are sexually active, and we care about each other very much." There. It was done. He waited grimly for her reaction, for the screaming and shouting, for the tears. But at first, none of that happened.

"What do you want me to do with this?" she asked him quietly.

Miguel hesitated. "I...I don't know. I'm really suffering over this, Mom. At church."

"Suffering? To me it sounds like you are not suffering at all. Rather than suffering, which is what we all must do, you are seeking every last bit of the pleasure you desire—in this perverted, disgusting indulgence—and showing no restraint whatsoever. My son, that is not suffering."

He swallowed painfully. "I thought it would be better to tell you, and not Dad—"

"Why? As if you thought I would not tell him myself?"

"Mom, you can't. I'm not ready for that."

Only now did she raise her voice. "You must be out of your mind to think you have a say. Not at this point. There will be no secrets between your father and me—let alone something of this magnitude. What exactly did you think was going to happen?"

Clearly Miguel had not thought it through. "I don't know. You're my mom." His hands shook. "I thought I could trust you."

Just as tears filled his eyes, so did they flood into his mother's. "That's not what this is about. You think you can just do whatever you want? You think your situation is special? Look around you Miguel. We all have our proper roles to fill, and we all must suffer for them." She got up and began gesturing wildly around the kitchen. "Look at this place. Just look at this...fucking place." (It was the first and only time Miguel would ever hear his mother swear.) "I am capable of so much more than this. And yet, this is my role. This is my suffering. It is what I am supposed to do. Is that clear to you or not?" She smeared her hands across the front of the refrigerator, sending a dozen magnets, notes and greeting cards tumbling to the floor. "This is what suffering looks like."

They both cried openly. Miguel scraped together his thoughts, told his mother, "You say you are so capable, but all I see is that you are incapable of changing your shitty life. I feel sad for you." He left immediately, hurrying down the townhouse steps to the sidewalk. His mother called out his name in two pained bleats before slamming the front door shut.

Without realizing where he was headed, Miguel landed five stations up the line, in the lavish hallway outside of Daniel's home. Daniel's mother answered the door, and the boy soon met Miguel out in the hall. Together they went up to the roof and stood at the edge, where the city spread out before them in a thick blanket of lights. Here, Miguel told Daniel everything that had happened.

"Your parents will contact mine," Daniel said. "My life will be over."

"I don't think so. They barely know each other."

"But you're not sure about that, are you? Fuck, Miguel, how could you be so careless? All I can do at this point is just hope to God they don't find out. And of course, you and I can't keep doing this."

"Can't keep doing what?"

"This. All of it. It's gotten way too risky, and now it could fuck over everything else in our lives. All of our personal goals. Don't you care about that, even a little?"

"Of course I do. But I care about us, too."

A look of confusion flashed across Daniel's face. "There's nowhere for this to go, understand? I'll be at Stanford in two months. You knew that. Look, I'm sorry neither of us ever made it clear before now, but we aren't soulmates. It just wouldn't make any sense. I have goals in politics. Real-world politics, Miguel. My face sets me back enough as it is. But an openly gay man with this face? I wouldn't stand a chance."

Overwhelmed, Miguel blurted out the only thing he could muster: "Your face?"

"This, stupid." Daniel drew an imaginary circle twice around his features with his index finger. "Not white."

"Oh, come on. It's not that big of a deal."

"Wow. Fucking easy for you to say. You're as good as white in this city."

"What is that supposed to mean?"

"It means, don't you dare act like you understand how it is."


Miguel felt himself becoming hot with panic. A bull lurked in Daniel's words, and he knew he must now grab it by its horns. "So that's it, then? It's that easy for you to end this?"

"It's not like that. It's not about easy or hard. This is just how it has to be. I know it, and I think you know it too. I can't speak for you, but I have some big plans. I'm not willing to risk it all over romance. Not even close."

Miguel's tears returned. "Then you are not who I thought you were."

In the coming weeks, as Miguel would recall these few, pivotal seconds, he gleaned comfort only from the fact that Daniel had cried as well. "I'm so sorry, Miguel," came his final words on the matter. "You're right. I'm not."