August Edevane
Before I met him, I figured that anyone with the audacity to name himself “Atlas” must be terribly pretentious, terribly tortured, or both.
Atlas Abagnale was, in fact, both pretentious and tortured, but in a rather mundane way, contrary to his namesake. When I met him, I found myself almost disappointed. From the few terse emails we had exchanged, I had constructed an admittedly fanciful, almost larger-than-life vision of the man, he who shared his name with the world-bearing titan of ancient Greek myth. Surely no loving parent would give their child a name that foretold an impossibly immense burden, and surely one had to have carried such a burden in order to feel that the name “Atlas” suited them.
What sort of burden could the man be carrying? The burden of a harrowing past, perhaps. Or of some dreadful secret. Or both. As the days leading up to my interview with Atlas Abagnale grew few, his lore grew more elaborate, his mystery more enthralling. He was a hitman, a mafioso, a former CIA agent, a foreign spy.
In reality, he was nothing more than a victim of my chronic daydreaming. The moment I laid eyes on him, in the corner of a bright cafe on a Friday afternoon, shame crashed into me, shame of my childish tendency to imagine my way into inevitable disappointment. I didn’t know what I thought he’d look like, but it certainly wasn’t this.
Desperately, I glanced at my phone, that same ashamed part of me hoping I’d made some other, lesser mistake, that the skinny, hairy, sliver of a man wasn’t my Atlas.
In the corner in blue shirt and glasses. – A.
The way he always signed off his text messages had only added to his mystique up to now.
A shaft of white-gold afternoon sunlight fell upon him, as if highlighting him to me, and further highlighting my silent humiliation. The usual liturgy ran through my mind: immature, childish, romantic, absurd. Like his text specified, he was in a blue plaid shirt, buttoned up to the neck, and a pair of rectangular glasses. His delicate-looking, long fingers were steepled in front of his face, and he was staring at the screen of his laptop, seemingly deep in thought.
“Mr. Abagnale,” I addressed him with a hand outstretched for a shake.
“It’s pronounced Ah-bahn-ya-lay. And Atlas is fine.” He rose to meet my extended hand, but did not look me in the eye as he gave my hand a single, firm pump. I couldn’t at all read the impression he got of me, a crisis that would continue through the interview. Atlas kept a perfect poker face, without even the most minute of twitches or flashes of feeling. It seemed to me that his features were simply frozen that way, as though someone had carved them out of dark wood. He probably never even so much as laughed or smiled an open-mouthed, toothless smile as a baby. I tried to imagine a baby Atlas, but, distracted by the fine black hairs on his upper lip, I found I could not. It was as though he emerged into the world from nothingness, fully formed, with a keen sense of who he was and what his purpose was.
“Gerard?”
I blinked. “I’m sorry, what was the question?” My third social blunder of the hour. They always seemed to come in threes, like strikes in baseball. I was only ever three misses away from being turned away, rejected.
“You got the job. When can you start working?”
Somehow, I had hit a home run without even swinging.
***
Atlas and I worked separately most of the time, each from our respective home offices. But every so often, we would meet up at Arcadia Cafe if there were issues that needed to be discussed in person. Though, at times, I suspect that Atlas simply wanted companionship while he worked. Or to keep an eye on me to ensure that I wasn’t slacking off. He always insisted on paying for both of our coffees. For as humorless and intimidating as he had seemed during our interview, he made for a kind and lenient employer. Perhaps because I was the only employee. Our relationship was more like that of coworkers than that of a boss and his tight-leashed worker drone.
Atlas’ business—AA Logistics—revolved around doing behind-the-scenes work for other businesses—crunching numbers, budgeting, accounting. Though, he only had one client when he brought me on: his parents’ diner, a small, out-of-the-way place that served both Italian and American cuisine called Tommaso’s Diner. Atlas’ parents didn’t so much want to grow or expand the business, but to maintain it as it was, and Atlas shared a similar attitude when it came to his career.
“I’ll be happy with just a few local clients. I’m not looking to become a billionaire,” he would say.
I had never met Mr. and Mrs. Abagnale in person, but from their seeming lack of monetary ambition, I assumed they were rather laid-back and forgiving as parents. Surely, Atlas had gotten the reasonable scope of his dreams from their gentle pragmatism.
Atlas once told me that he didn’t believe in genius, that all so-called “geniuses” throughout history were simply people who were in the right place at the right time. Genius only exists when it is seen by others; the title is only bestowed unto those who make the most immense contributions to society and culture. Intellect and talent on the level of “genius” exists and goes unrecognized and unnamed every day, because it is simply not what society needs or seeks out at the time.
I was never sure how to feel about the idea, because as I got to know him, I had a feeling that in another life, Atlas would have been remembered by history as a genius. He was that sort of person, the sort who thought very deeply about everything but rarely gave voice to his thoughts.
“I dropped out of college twice,” he’d said when I asked where he went to school. “I don’t even have a bachelor’s. If society worked the way its set up to, I’d be working for you instead.” He looked up at the ceiling, his fingers steepled in the same way they were the day he interviewed me. I’d learned that he did this whenever he was thinking, the gears in his mind well-oiled and turning.
“Does it bother you?” he continued, “that you’re technically more qualified than I am, yet I’m paying you?” He lowered his gaze nearly to meet mine, but I could tell he was staring at the large freckle on my left cheek. It was, and still is, the one feature of mine that can draw the eye, and there was the other thing about him—he never looked me directly in the eye, and when our eyes did happen to meet, he’d look away and blink, as though he’d just looked directly at the sun. Not flustered or embarrassed, but uncomfortable. I found it strange and irritating at first, a sign that he thought little of me.
“I don’t know,” I said, surprised by the question and myself. If I didn’t respect him, sure, the fact that he didn’t have a degree and yet was my superior might have irritated me. Or rather, I would have been deeply jealous. Jealous of the fact that he hadn’t taken the “correct” path, the one everyone is put on by their parents, teachers, and peers, the one that leads directly through college, a respectable job, and lands you in the blissfully dull Elysium of middle-class contentment, and yet had ended up in a position that elicited more reverence, more respect from others, than mine.
But I knew better. We’d been working together for about a year by this point, an unusually warm November afternoon, and I could see how much he’d struggled. Taking the “wrong” path wasn’t at all as easy as it’s made out to be. Atlas had taken the path that made him a failure in the eyes of some, but a success in his own. A path that was winding and meandering and long, but one that he had forged himself.
“It doesn’t,” I clarified, my feelings crystalized into words, “and if I can be frank, I admire you, Atlas. For creating your own metric for success, and for succeeding by it. Not everyone can do that, you know. It takes a particular kind of strength, I think.”
“Not strength,” Atlas cut in, his voice suddenly gone soft, “necessity.”
Silence filled the space between us. Neither of us so much as pressed a key on our laptops’ keyboards.
***
“I want you to meet my mother,” he said to me one day, as we were both about to wrap up work. It sounded as though he’d been holding in the proposition for some time; his voice was strained.
We’d been seeing each other for a little over three months by this point, and, for all intents and purposes, taking things slow.
“Is it too early for you?” he tended to talk quickly when he was stressed, syllables tumbling into each other until the phrase sounded more like a single word.
I blinked at him as I turned the situation over and over in my mind, like a Rubik’s cube with one square out of place. In an effort to keep the lines between our work lives and romantic lives clean and distinct, we had a rule: no talking about our relationship during work.
“You seem really agitated about this,” I observed. The shadow of a smile briefly played over Atlas’ lips, as if to say: well, obviously.
“Can I ask why this has you so worked up?” I asked softly. In a move that had become almost natural to me, I reached for his hand and gave it a squeeze, a signal to him to calm down.
Atlas’ pinched gaze softened as he looked down at my hand over his. I sat back down in my chair, tugging his hand to encourage him to do the same.
“Who wouldn’t be ‘worked up’ about their partner meeting their mother? I want her to like you.” He huffed, but there was no irritation behind it, nor behind the returning squeeze he gave my hand from across the table.
Somehow, I got the feeling that there was more to the tension in Atlas’ posture than worrying about earning his mother’s approval with his choice of partner. For as long as I had known him, he’d never been concerned about his parents’ approval, though it had taken him a long time to shed that desperate desire for his father’s warm smile, or his mother’s praise. Though it usually took some time, Atlas did open up to me about some things, unraveled his mystery and mystique until it was mundane. And his mundanity captured my heart even more than the mysticism I had assigned to him when we first met over email. Above all, Atlas Abagnale was hopelessly human, and I had learned to love that.
All I could do now was trust him to take the time he needed.
“Do you want to talk about it?” I asked.
“No.” He looked up at me sheepishly. I gave his hand another squeeze, as if to say: I’m here.
***
Chiara Abagnale was a petite woman with a halo of wavy, graying hair about her head. She had the same seemingly mirthless, perpetual poker face as Atlas. When I opened the door to Atlas’ apartment to let her in, she said nothing for a moment, but looked me up and down, her large brown eyes (a trait also shared with Atlas) assessing me.
“You are the boyfriend?” she asked, not wary, but hardly eager.
“I suppose so.” I answered, trying to keep my mind from wandering. Atlas had hardly told me anything about his parents, other than that he was on uneasy terms with his father, and that he had his mother over for dinner every month.
Mrs. Abagnale raised a curious eyebrow at me.
“Mom,” Atlas appeared behind me, having briefly abandoned the chicken marsala on the stove, “at least come inside before you start interrogating him.” He said this with an affectionate sort of exasperation. Mrs. Abagnale’s mouth briefly twitched into a half-smile.
*
“Gerard Gialamas,” she addressed me over coffee after dinner, “tell me, what is it he,” she jerked her chin in Atlas’ direction, “sees in you?”
My cheeks flushed slightly. “You’ll have to ask him that. Because frankly, ma’am, I don’t know myself.” A smooth deflection. A perfect bunt, and a runner’s on first base.
“He’s dedicated, understanding, gentle, and inquisitive.” Atlas appeared behind me again, this time with one hand on my shoulder, and a coffee in the other. The answer was so prompt, and sounded so rehearsed, that I raised an eyebrow at him. He must have been anticipating the question. He looked down at me, but ignored my silent inquiry.
The evening continued much in this way, with Atlas’ mother asking the standard questions: how did you meet? Are you going to get married? When can I see the two of you again? Atlas answered them all smoothly, like a celebrity on a late-night talk show. Chiara could sense it, that Atlas was performing. I could see it in the tight purse of her lips, in the slight flick of the muscle in her jaw. She was unsatisfied, but hardly had room to say as much, as Atlas’ performance brooked no criticism. He was everything a son introducing his significant other should be.
“Atlas, you have to text me more often. I’m finally getting the hang of the thing.” She made this final bid for connection before she left. Atlas simply nodded and smiled and said: “I will.”
“That was exhausting.” Atlas’ practiced, wooden mask fell as we both collapsed into chairs on the balcony. The air was cold, but its bite was refreshing.
“Is it because of me—because you’re gay?” The question spilled out of me unbidden.
“No, whatever it is, it’s not because of you. What do you mean?” He wasn’t the type to play dumb.
“The way you talked to her tonight. I could tell, you know. You never smile that much, even with me. You were faking it. Telling her what she wanted to hear.”
Atlas was silent for a long moment. He moved his glasses to his head, and tipping his head back, scrubbed a hand over his face, as if removing a mask.
“Not everyone can be genuine with their parents.” He said slowly.
“I know. I just want to know the reason why you can’t be genuine with your mom. Why you keep her at arm’s length. Because I don’t think it’s just to avoid conflict.”
Silence fell between us again. I didn’t want to insert my usual caveat of “you don’t have to tell me.” Atlas had spent long enough hiding something, and if we were going to be anything substantial, I had to know what it was.
“You once told me that you admired me for creating my own metric for success, and succeeding by it,” he began, “I don’t think you would still admire me that way if you knew.”
“Knew what?”
“I’m a vain man, Gerard. I crave the widespread admiration that comes with traditional success, with being a man among men, with building empires. But I know I can never have it. Because you, see, I wasn’t always their son. I wasn’t always Atlas.”
Something in me broke in that moment, and, head spinning, I reached across our two armrests to Atlas’ arm. His hand still rested over his eyes, avoiding seeing me, seeing anything at all. I placed my two hands over his arm, leaning his way, pleading.
“Oh God, Atlas, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have made you tell me. I’m sorry that you had to hide it from me, that I made you feel like you had to hide, I—”
Atlas looked at me, his eyes glimmering with unshed tears, a wry smile on his face.
“I knew,” he said. “I knew you’d say something like that, but I couldn’t convince my heart of it. Because there’s always a chance. No matter how wonderful someone is, they just might be repulsed. They just might be dangerous. It’s the one thing I can’t chance on.” He swallowed hard, his voice thick.
“My mom knows, but she doesn’t quite understand. I’m sure she still calls me her daughter behind my back. With my parents, I can be understood or accepted, but not both.”
“I’m sorry,” I said again.
“It’s not your fault,” Atlas replied, even though he knew that wasn’t why I apologized.
In a moment of bravery, I moved one of my hands from Atlas’ arm to cradle his face. His smile dissolved into an expression of serenity, his lips losing their hard set, the furrows near his eyes vanishing. I stroked a reverent thumb along the ridge of a cheekbone.
“I admire you even more now, you know. Everything you’ve done up to now, the life you’ve made for yourself, it can’t have been easy.”
Atlas huffed out a laugh and leaned into my touch.
“So can I keep admiring you?”
Atlas placed his hand over mine.
“Always.”
August Edevane is a writer and aspiring author of queer fiction. They are an English major in their final year of college. When they’re not writing, they’re creating art or playing with their cats. Tumblr: @augustedevane
