New Boy | Miguel Diaz

FaceBook Trouble

"Are you ready, or what?" Dad tightened his grip on the rope, holding up Miguel.

"I hate this. This is ridiculous."

"What's ridiculous about it?"

"I look like a giant baby." Miguel points out, causing me to laugh.

"The way you're whining and not walking, you might as well be a baby."

"Isn't there a more badass way we can do this?"

"You think tapping your foot at a concert makes you ready for badass training? Your legs are still pussies! Now, you ready to stand?"

"Yes."

"Okay. One, two, three, go." Dad let go of the rope, but Miguel's limp legs caused him to fall to the floor. "Alright. Better fall that time. Let's take five."

"You know, uh- Mom's been talking about you a lot recently." Miguel says to my dad as I help him over to the couch.

"Oh yeah?"

"She says thank you for taking me to that concert."

"She say anything else?"

Miguel shakes his head and looks at my dad's laptop. "You writing a novel?"

"Oh, no, it's a Facebook message."

"That? To who?"

"I, uh-"

"Ali." I interrupt.

"Ali? Like, the Ali? This is huge. This is huge! This is so... but I mean, you're not gonna send that, right? You cannot send her that message."

"Why not?"

"Because it's like 80 pages. In all caps."

"I have 35 years worth of stuff to say, alright?"

"Okay, yeah, but shorter messages are way cooler. Like, this just looks desperate, and a little creepy. I mean, sending her this would be like if you... like if you liked all of her photos." I shrugged.

He raises his eyebrows and drinks his beer.

Miguel and I look at each other before looking back at Dad, "Oh no. Oh no." We both say.

"What the hell, man? I enjoyed the photos. And there's a button for exactly that, why would I not click it?"

"So that's what you were doing all night?" I sit up.

"And she can see that." Miguel pointed out.

"Alright, I got amped-up, okay? And what do you guys say to each other when you message?"

Both Miguel and I turned red, "Uh- We-" We stuttered.

Dad shook his head, "Yeah, no, just forget I asked that. But, look, she put a smiley face in the message. It's even got little red cheeks. Does that mean she's gettin hot? She's feelin hot? What am I supposed to do with that?"

"I think it's just a smiley face. Let's see... Okay, so she says she wants to know what you've been up to. Good. This is good. We can salvage this. Let's just make you a kick-ass profile. Then you'll be sending your message from a position of strength. Uh, first we need to get some pictures. Do you have any photos?"

"Yeah, photos?"

"Yeah."

"Yeah, don't move." He laughed. "I said don't move."

"Here. Those are the only photos I have. Don't have much after high school." He hands us a couple photos, but he was shirtless in all of them.

"Oh, okay, um... do you have any where you're wearing a shirt maybe?" I shrug.