Cry

Nes was short for Nestor. He was the kid next door who was a couple of years older than my brother. He knew how to play the guitar. He has all these plastic toy soldiers. He had the sweetest smile. And I had the biggest crush on him.

But he and my older brother were the ones who clicked. They looked for each other every afternoon. My brother lent him our Matchboxes; Nes taught my brother the major and minor chords. They dared each other to climb the guava and duhat trees in our backyard. They even got circumcised in the same year. They would invite me along, of course. Maybe they saw us as a trio, but I always felt like the third wheel. I couldn’t stand feeling bad all the time at Nes’ paltry token attention towards me, yet I couldn’t stay away from him.

One day I heard Nes singing a song that he heard on the radio. He really liked it and was trying to figure out the chords on the guitar:

If there’s a tear on my face
It makes me shiver to the bones; it shakes me, babe.
It’s just a heartache that got caught in my eye,
and you know I never cry,
I never cry.

I may be lonely but I’m never alone.
And the night may pass me by,
but I’ll never cry.

Take away, take away my eyes.
Sometimes I’d rather be blind.
Break a heart, break a heart of stone,
open it up but don’t you leave it alone.

‘Cause that’s all I’ve got give to you.
Believe me babe, it ain’t been used.
My heart’s a virgin, it ain’t never been tried.
And you know I’ll never cry.
I’ll never cry.

It was Alice Cooper’s 1976 hit, “I’ll Never Cry” and little did I know how much it’d reverberate in my inner jukebox for years to come. From then on I never let him see how much I liked him and how much it hurt just to look at him.