The 40 Day Con Who: Dante Ruiz What: Easter day reflections When: April 21st, 2019 Where: Dante's apartment, which references to various other locations during the day Rating: PG
When Dante left his apartment, it was early in the morning. Not earlier than he would normally be awake, but earlier than he would probably be out and about on a Sunday. The day of rest. A bit of an oxymoron, at least on Easter Sunday, because that particular Sunday was anything but restful. By the time that he got back, he was exhausted, and the bed looked particularly inviting, but he still had a few things that he needed to take care of before he could enjoy the sweet embrace of sleep. One of those things involved a shower.
The water was as hot as he could handle, which meant that maybe it was a little bit hotter than it should have been, but he wasn’t so much of a masochist that he wouldn’t turn it down to more bearable temperatures if he felt the need. As he let the water hit his body, his mind replayed the events of the day. So much could happen in a short amount of time.
There was no denying that Dante loved his family. They were the most important people in his life, and he would do almost anything for them. At the same time, there was also no denying that, as much as he loved them, being around them for a very long time could be extremely draining. Easter was one of those days that had a routine that was adhered to without fail. Dante got up that morning, ate something light, as the promise of food later in the day was enough to make him want to save some space, dressed in one of the suits that he owned, and headed over to church.
Whereas the contingency of Ruiz family members who arrived on Ash Wednesday was limited to him and his grandparents, the entire crew showed up for the Easter sermon. Nineteen strong. He knew that his family was big, larger than most. He was reminded of just how large the family was every Christmas, which was part of the reason why he made sure to put away a portion of every paycheck from the start of the year until the holiday came towards a fund that was solely used to buy them all presents, but there were still times when even Dante was surprised by just how much space they took up. A lot of pews. A part of him wondered if other families were annoyed by the sheer amount of space a single group took up. Maybe, if he had a smaller family, Dante would share those sentiments. But the large group was all that he had ever known, so, to him, it was normal.
He could almost quote the sermon verbatim, having heard it so many times in his life. And while his grandparents, who were the epitome of devout Catholics, took in every word like it was the gospel, Dante had found himself struggling to keep focused. If Ash Wednesday was a sprint to get through, the Easter sermon was a marathon. Thankfully, it wasn’t Midnight Mass, but it was a distant second. He occupied part of his time trying to keep his younger cousins from fidgeting too much. Their lack of interest, he was pretty sure, wasn’t rooted in any sort of crisis of faith and could instead be explained by simple youthful exuberance. At one point, his eyes found themselves looking over at the cross, and he could have sworn that the Jesus statue was staring at him, as if to pass judgment.
Fast forward to after church was finished. While Dante had arrived to the church solo, he did not leave by himself. He was accompanied by two of his cousins as they made their way back to his grandparents’ house. Their conversations were mindless, very simple. Dante wondered quietly if either of them would end up like him, questioning the very religious tenant that was such a strong foundation for their family. Hopefully, if and when that happened, Dante would be able to use his own experiences to help them navigate their way through it… but, given that he was still wading through the mire of indecision, he knew that he wasn’t going to be much help yet.
Mami and Papi’s house never really felt large at any point of his life. Even though it was a four bedroom home, with two and a half bathrooms, it always seemed like it was never big enough to house the many people who called it home. How could it? One of those reminders of just how big his family was happened every time the family gathered at the home and there were lines to use one of the bathrooms. Thankfully, he could change in one of the rooms. His old room.
What little Dante had left when he moved to Lincoln was basically left untouched. A snapshot of the person who had, up until the moment that he left, never known any other type of home. Dante knew that part of the reason for the decision to leave the room in the exact same way as he left it was because Mami held out hope that he would return home one day. And while there were times when he would sleep in his old bed, usually on Christmas Eve, Dante knew that the likelihood of his full time return to the house was slim. Still, it was nice to be surrounded by familiar things.
One of his jobs, as the eldest cousin, was to keep the younger kids occupied while the adults hid some eggs in the front yard. If it was just Dante alone, trying to wrangle eight children of various ages and temperaments, he probably would have failed epically. Thankfully, the ratio of kids who had grown out of egg hunting was relatively balanced, affording Dante some backup. They played games, which, as expected, did result in some tantrums when some of the more competitive children found themselves on the losing end, but Dante was able to handle those meltdowns with relative ease. Though he found such moments difficult to enjoy, the fact that he didn’t feel the immediate urge to schedule an appointment to prevent him from having children of his own basically just helped reassure him that his yearning to start a family of his own eventually was a genuine one, not one that was etched in cultural expectations… or even familial ones. Hopefully, though… his kids would be less… taxing? Was that the nicest way of putting it?
Just before even his vaunted reserves of tolerance were about to reach empty, relief came in the form of an Easter egg hunt, and whatever frustrations there may have been that lingered in his person found themselves evaporating as he watched the kids look frantically for any hint of an oval shaped object. Some of them didn’t care what they found, happy to take their prize without a thought. A few of them, the older children of the hunting group, were more intent on finding the plastic eggs, knowing full well that those eggs were the ones that could hold actual money in them. Not a lot of money, no, but even if they were able to amass ten dollars, that was still ten dollars more than what they had at the start of the day. There was logic in that mindset. A mindset that was formed out of materialism, sure, but a logical one nonetheless.
Easter was a mix of cuisines, one of the times where the cultural melting pot that was America bled out to the meal table. There were several Mexican staples, like enchiladas, refried beans, and, to his regret, rice. Dante’s aversion towards Spanish rice was well known among his family, and the amount of times that one of his relatives coyly asked if he wanted some had long devolved from charming to amusing to just… let the horse rest in peace. One staple that wasn’t there? Tamales. Because everyone agreed that, while delicious, nobody wanted to put that much work into making food unless it was for Christmas. Apparently, Jesus being born was a bigger deal than coming back from the dead, which seemed like it would have been the more impressive feat. But since Dante was one of the people who didn’t want to spend hours rolling out masa and filling it with meat, he didn’t offer any counter-argument. Food that fit a more traditional ideal of what an Easter meal should have been were mixed in with the Mexican offerings. Deviled eggs and the star of the show: ham. While the food preparation was not a solo act, Imelda had functioned as head chef. Everything on the table had a touch of Imelda in it, and, to the woman’s credit, it was all delicious. Or at least everything that Dante tried was delicious. The rice was apparently delicious, but whatever.
As an added bonus, his self-imposed boycott of soda had ended. Well, maybe self-imposed wasn’t the best way of putting it. Obligation imposed? Terminology aside, the 40 days were at an end, allowing him to enjoy his food with something a little bit more flavorful than water. To his lament, Dante observed several of his Tios, and one of his Tias, also indulge in their unrestricted freedom by chugging Tecate like they had to make up for lost time. He’d seen them much more inebriated at various points in his life, and while he would never put the alcoholic tag on any of them, it didn’t make him any less anxious about the possibility. Mami and Papi also stayed silent, which he knew they would not do if they were worried about him in the same way. Just another expectation that Dante was to live up to, but others in the family got a pass for. Sometimes it was hard to ignore the frustrations that came from those expectations. And yet, to complain about them to the people who placed those expectations on him just seemed like an admission of failure. So instead, Dante stayed silent and let the cycle continue. Even though he knew that wasn’t the smartest way of handling it, even though he would advise other people to break the cycle if they were in something like that themselves, he seemed resigned to his fate. One of those moments of hypocrisy that were just unavoidable in life.
Another wardrobe change later, and Dante was off. By that point, the sun was starting to set, although it was hard to see through the clouds that made up the Los Angeles skies. Most places closed early on Sundays, and in Boyle, where a sizeable portion of the business owners were of the Catholic faith, a decent portion of the businesses that closed early weren’t even open on Easter. The gym was no different, but when one happened to be the grandson of the owner? Well, that afforded Dante certain luxuries. The massive mounds of food that he had inhaled had settled in his stomach, and it was time to try and work off some of those calories.
It didn’t take long to realize that, while he had brought more casual clothes to change into for the Easter festivities at home, and his standard workout attire for the gym, he didn’t bother to think about bringing a change of socks. Dress socks weren’t exactly the most comfortable thing to have, even when covered with shoes, while running on the treadmill. They just felt weird. He cut that portion of the workout short and instead added more time to his kickboxing routine.
The empty gym echoed with basically every movement that he made. It was unnerving in an odd way, because he didn’t feel unsafe, just uncomfortable. Headphones were donned, pumping in music from his phone to help drown out the quiet, and the tactic was successful in drowning out those thoughts. Subconsciously, Dante knew that he was throwing more weight behind his strikes. Trying to use his hands and fit in an attempt to beat out his guilt, maybe? Probably. If that was what he was doing, was he successful in his attempts? Hardly. Luckily, he was used to failing at that particular aspect of his life to the point where it could almost be considered to not be frustrating. Almost.
The workout was the reason for the shower at home. He may not have felt unsafe at the gym, despite being alone, but he wasn’t really willing to risk being alone and naked at the gym just in case someone opted to ransack the place at that moment. By the time he turned the water off, his muscles ached that ache that was also somehow a relief. The way the body worked was weird. He made sure to dry every part of his body, taking extra care to ensure that his hair was dry. Mami always said that going to bed with wet hair was one of the easiest ways to catch a cold. And if Dante was going to listen to any single person in just about any aspect of life, it was Mami. After wiping away some of the fog that had covered the mirror because of the steam in the bathroom, he saw that his hair was a mess. Dante shrugged, knowing full well that he wasn’t going to see anyone else for the day.
After changing into his sleep attire, the last wardrobe change for the day, which included a quick chortle as he wondered if that was what singers had to go through during concerts, Dante grabbed the workout clothes. He saw that the dress socks had torn a little at the heel, which he would remember in the future. All the dirty clothes were dumped in the hamper, except for the suit, which was hung on the inside of his closet to be taken to the dry cleaner sometime in the near future.
Dehydrated, Dante walked over to the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water from the fridge before looking out the window at the moon. The last day of the full moon was the day before, but it still looked mostly full to him. Bright enough to shine through the patches of clouds that still lingered in the night sky, covering up part of the stars, which the skyline assisted with. He didn’t lament the city life. Far from it, he loved it, but there were times when he did want to see the stars a little bit more. He didn’t even know why he was thinking about that. Odd.
The half empty water bottle was placed on the nightstand next to his bed, just in case he woke up thirsty in the middle of the night. Dante got under the covers and the last thoughts he had before falling asleep were if he could go through another Easter period while being so uncertain about his faith, or if he would even have to and he could finally express his conflict to those that he was closest to. Funny, it seemed like déjà vu from the year before.