“I ran into the house, crumpled the pack of cigarettes and cried to myself. I cried for Ricky. I cried because I felt like such a coward.”

“My mother would always ask us if anyone wanted to learn how to cook or to sew or to iron clothes. I always ran to her—“Me! Me! Me!” So, my mom would teach me. I secretly feared that I might be condemning myself to a life of sissyhood. One day she said it was good that I learned these things because I was never going to be strong or handsome or smart or popular like my older brother, Jesús. He was “el molde” (the mold) I would never be a good copy of him. She said that I might never find a girlfriend or get married—so it was good that I was learning to take care of myself. It freaked me out. I wanted to be strong, handsome, smart, and popular like my brother, Jesús. I never felt like I was. I was just a bad copy...”

“My mother said she already knew how I was. She could tell I was like that since I was a baby. She told me a story about when I was a toddler. She said that one day, she heard an alarm clock ringing in her room and when she went inside, she saw me bent over it. When she got closer, she could she me shaking baby powder on it!“What are you doing, Joey?” She asked me.“Baby crying,” was my reply.”

“. I can still see Ricky on that roof... the sunlight shining in his round dark eyes, eyes dark as the onyx stones on my mother’s silver bracelet. His shiny black hair was matted and shoulder-length. I wondered who cut his hair. My grandmother cut mine.”

“As a child I felt mostly alone. Now, having been trained as a psychologist, I am still, because I know things and must hint at things which others apparently know nothing of, and for the most part do not want to know.”

“In the morning, I do not eat because I think of you... At noon, I do not eat because I think of you...In the evening, I do eat because I think of you...At night, I do not sleep because I am hungry!”

“I don't really think of myself as an inspirational person. Instead, I tend to think of myself as being more like one of those guys standing on a busy street corner, twirling a a big pointed arrow. Except that my sign points toward Heaven.”