Aristotle and Dante Discover the Secrets of the Universe (Aristotle and Dante, #1)

by Benjamin Alire Sáenz

WHY DO WE SMILE? WHY DO WE LAUGH? WHY DO we feel alone? Why are we sad and confused? Why do we read poetry? Why do we cry when we see a painting? Why is there a riot in the heart when we love? Why do we feel shame? What is that thing in the pit of your stomach called desire?

The problem with my life was that it was someone else’s idea.

For the music to be over so soon. For the music to be over when it had just begun. That was really sad.

My mom had a thing for the poor. She’d been there. She knew things about hunger that I’d never know.

It was a small idea. But at least the idea was mine.

Sometimes I think my father has all these scars. On his heart. In his head. All over. It’s not such an easy thing to be the son of a man who’s been to war.

When I was eight, I didn’t know anything about war. I didn’t even know what a conscience was. All I knew is that sometimes my father was sad. I hated that he was sad. It made me sad too. I didn’t like sad.

Sometimes I thought that being fifteen was the worst tragedy of all.

We laughed again. We couldn’t stop. I wondered what it was we were laughing about. Was it just our names? Were we laughing because we were relieved? Were we happy? Laughter was another one of life’s mysteries.

“Nice to meet you, Ari.” I liked the way he said Nice to meet you, Ari. Like he meant it.

I got to thinking that poems were like people. Some people you got right off the bat. Some people you just didn’t get—and never would get.

He was so perfect in his newly organized room, the western sun streaming in, his face in the light and the book in his hand as if it was meant to be there, in his hands, and only in his hands.

I didn’t worry about understanding them. I didn’t care about what they meant. I didn’t care because what mattered is that Dante’s voice felt real. And I felt real. Until Dante, being with other people was the hardest thing in the world for me. But Dante made talking and living and feeling seem like all those things were perfectly natural. Not in my world, they weren’t.

Words were different when they lived inside of you.

Something happened inside me as I looked out into the vast universe. Through that telescope, the world was closer and larger than I’d ever imagined. And it was all so beautiful and overwhelming and—I don’t know—it made me aware that there was something inside of me that mattered.

“It is too a real sport. I’m real. You’re real. The tennis shoes are real. The street is real. And the rules we establish—they’re real too. What more do you want?”

I wanted to tell him not to cry anymore, tell him that what those boys did to that bird didn’t matter. But I knew it did matter. It mattered to Dante. And, anyway, it didn’t do any good to tell him not to cry because he needed to cry. That’s the way he was.

Dante was crying again. And I felt mean because I didn’t feel like crying. I didn’t really feel anything for the bird. It was a bird. Maybe the bird didn’t deserve to get shot by some stupid kid whose idea of fun was shooting at things. But it was still just a bird. I was harder than Dante. I think I’d tried to hide that hardness from him because I’d wanted him to like me. But now he knew. That I was hard. And maybe that was okay. Maybe he could like the fact that I was hard just as I liked the fact that he wasn’t hard.

I thought of Dante and wondered about him. And it seemed to me that Dante’s face was a map of the world. A world without any darkness. Wow, a world without darkness. How beautiful was that?

“from what we cannot hold the stars are made.”

I thought of my chair and how really it was a portrait of me. I was a chair. I felt sadder than I’d ever felt. I knew I wasn’t a boy anymore. But I still felt like a boy. Sort of. But there were other things I was starting to feel. Man things, I guess. Man loneliness was much bigger than boy loneliness. And I didn’t want to be treated like a boy anymore. I didn’t want to live in my parents’ world and I didn’t have a world of my own. In a strange way, my friendship with Dante had made me feel even more alone.

So I renamed myself Ari. If I switched the letter, my name was Air. I thought it might be a great thing to be the air. I could be something and nothing at the same time. I could be necessary and also invisible. Everyone would need me and no one would be able to see me.

It’s like my mom and dad created a whole new world for themselves. I live in their new world. But they understand the old world, the world they came from—and I don’t. I don’t belong anywhere.

There were so many ghosts in our house—the ghost of my brother, the ghosts of my father’s war, the ghosts of my sister’s voices. And I thought that maybe there were ghosts inside of me that I hadn’t even met yet. They were there. Lying in wait.

I thought he was the kindest man in the world. Maybe everybody was kind. Maybe even my father. But Mr. Quintana was brave. He didn’t care if the whole world knew he was kind.

Do you remember the summer of the rain . . . You must let everything fall that wants to fall. —Karen Fiser

I wondered what that was like, to hold someone’s hand. I bet you could sometimes find all of the mysteries of the universe in someone’s hand.

“I love swimming.” “I know,” I said. “I love swimming,” he said again. He was quiet for a little while. And then he said, “I love swimming—and you.” I didn’t say anything. “Swimming and you, Ari. Those are the things I love the most.”

There are some words I’ll never learn to spell.

Her eyes were like the night sky in the desert. It felt like there was a whole world living inside her. I didn’t know anything about that world.

I don’t want my parents organizing their world around me. I’m going to disappoint them someday. And then what?

I have this idea that the reason we have dreams is that we’re thinking about things that we don’t know we’re thinking about—and those things, well, they sneak out of us in our dreams. Maybe we’re like tires with too much air in them. The air has to leak out. That’s what dreams are.

There is a famous painting, Nighthawks, by Edward Hopper. I am in love with that painting. Sometimes, I think everyone is like the people in that painting, everyone lost in their own private universes of pain or sorrow or guilt, everyone remote and unknowable. The painting reminds me of you. It breaks my heart.

See the thing about artists is that they tell stories. I mean, some paintings are like novels.

Parents are rule givers. Maybe they gave us too many rules, Ari. Did you ever think about that?

This is my problem. I want other people to tell me how they feel. But I’m not so sure I want to return the favor.

I think I really loved him when I was a little boy. I think I really did. Maybe that’s why I felt sad and empty—because I’d missed him all my life.

turning the pages patiently in search of meanings —W. S. Merwin

The way she looked at me. Sometimes there was so much love in her voice that I just couldn’t stand it.

It was the most beautiful thing an adult who wasn’t my mom or dad had ever said to me. And I knew that there was something about me that Mrs. Quintana saw and loved. And even though I felt it was a beautiful thing, I also felt it was a weight. Not that she meant it to be a weight. But love was always something heavy for me. Something I had to carry.

Another secret of the universe: Sometimes pain was like a storm that came out of nowhere.

Through all of youth I was looking for you without knowing what I was looking for —W. S. Merwin

Maybe a good dream because when I woke I wasn’t sad. Maybe that’s how you measured whether a dream was good or bad. By the way it made you feel.

“Dante’s my friend.” I wanted to tell them that I’d never had a friend, not ever, not a real one. Until Dante. I wanted to tell them that I never knew that people like Dante existed in the world, people who looked at the stars, and knew the mysteries of water, and knew enough to know that birds belonged to the heavens and weren’t meant to be shot down from their graceful flights by mean and stupid boys. I wanted to tell them that he had changed my life and that I would never be the same, not ever. And that somehow it felt like it was Dante who had saved my life and not the other way around. I wanted to tell them that he was the first human being aside from my mother who had ever made me want to talk about the things that scared me. I wanted to tell them so many things and yet I didn’t have the words. So I just stupidly repeated myself. “Dante’s my friend.”

“WHAT DO YOU LOVE, ARI? WHAT DO YOU REALLY LOVE?” “I love the desert. God, I love the desert.” “It’s so lonely.” “Is it?” Dante didn’t understand. I was unknowable.

There was something about the sound of a man in pain that resembled the sound of a wounded animal.

“You guys been kissing?” “What’s it to you?” “Just asking.” “I don’t want to kiss him. He’s nothing.” “So what happened?” “He’s a self-involved, conceited, piece of shit. And he’s not even smart. And my mother doesn’t like him.”

I placed my hand on the back of his neck. I pulled him toward me. And kissed him. I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him. And I kissed him. And he kept kissing me back.

This was what was wrong with me. All this time I had been trying to figure out the secrets of the universe, the secrets of my own body, of my own heart. All of the answers had always been so close and yet I had always fought them without even knowing it. From the minute I’d met Dante, I had fallen in love with him. I just didn’t let myself know it, think it, feel it. My father was right. And it was true what my mother said. We all fight our own private wars.

he has so much anger in his eyes, that he’s half-blind.