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Angel is three.
Fed occasional scraps of food and kept on his toes by always ducking his father's blows, Angel is very skinny and very alert. He is so attentive, in fact, that he often notices things before they actually happen. A split second before the phone rings, Angel is at the nightstand, ready to grab the telephone and hand it to the nearest grown-up. Moments before it starts to rain, Angel runs into the house with his arms over his head. And of course, when his father takes a few steps towards the refrigerator, Angel dashes upstairs and hides under his bed, because he knows about The Bottles, and the fact that his father never reacts well after consuming the liquid inside.
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Angel is four.
Mama likes to sing to him. Sometimes she croons gentle lullabies, either in Spanish or in English, or sometimes in both. The fact is that she speaks very little English, which is probably how she got roped into marriage with Papa in the first place. But when she sings, she ties words together that would otherwise always be apart, making no sense but succeeding in crooning Angel to sleep. Or so she thinks. As she stands over a sleeping Angel, all the little boy can think of is how much he loves his Mama, and he does not fall asleep until, long after she leaves, he mulls the words over in his own head. Angel certainly recognizes beauty, because it is evident in so little in his life that he must create his own description for it.
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Angel is five.
There is something new in the house, and Angel suspects it may be alive. It screams and cries and makes strange noises, flailing its limbs wildly. Horrifyingly enough, this strange creature seems to have been the replacement of Mama, who Angel never sees anymore. Not seeing Mama is very unnerving for the little boy, who is terrified that Papa will now hurt him even more, and more often, now that Mama is no longer home. Papa, however, is now a rare presence as well, although Angel often comes across traces of cigarettes and The Bottles revealing that he must be somewhere in the house. Sometimes he is found smoking on the shabby sofa, tears streaming down his cheeks and barely avoiding extinguishing the cigarette. Angel sometimes sits on the floor just by the doorway, out of sight as Papa whispers words and names that Angel does not recognize. The new creature sobs on.
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Angel is six.
What Angel calls a "bed" is, all pretenses abandoned, really just a scrappy blanket, ratty pillow, and cot elevated on top of phone books. He sleeps on the floor of the bathroom, occasionally disturbed in his sleep by his intoxicated father's entrance, quick "business," and departure. Sometimes his father will kick Angel on his way out, as a way of reminding him that even while he's sleeping, his father still has complete control over him. When Angel wakes up because of this, he thinks that it is only a nightmare and goes back to sleep. Always, just before he falls asleep, he sings little lullabies to himself, either aloud or in his head. As he sings, he pictures Mama, wondering where she is now, because by now Angel is certain that she is not coming home. She left, he tells himself, because of Papa and me. Because I was bad and Papa was scary. In the end, however, he falls asleep to soft dreams of tender Mama's beautiful voice.
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Angel is seven.
The creature, Angel now learns, is called a baby. Its offical name is undecided, but now that it can walk and talk a little bit, Angel has decided to call it Tom. He does not know why he loves this name so much, but nevertheless he does, and so that is what the baby is called. Papa, on the other hand, calls the child Nicholas, a name that Angel has heard thrown around the house enough times to suspect that it is Papa's name as well. Both the baby and Papa have the same eyes, so dark they are nearly black, although Angel surprises everyone by having eyes of a lighter shade of brown, deep and mysterious as the color varies from chocolate to cinnamon. Tom/Nicholas sometimes stares at Angel for a bizarre amount of time, blinking as he takes in the wonder that is his older brother. In a display of affection, Angel returns his brother's awe by taking care of the younger boy – changing and providing his diapers, bathing him, and teaching him what different things are called. After all, Angel cannot forget that Tom's first word was "Angel."
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Angel is eight.
Mama's sister was always friendly with everyone, so even in the aftermath of Mama's death, Papa and Angel are invited to the wedding of Mama's sister. Angel vaguely remembers Mama's sister, a slim dark-haired woman with a bright smile and sparkly eyes. She used to give Angel cookies and kisses and presents in boxes with shiny paper.
Papa, even though he doesn't like being reminded of Mama, decides to go. He is disgruntled about it, but agrees to go regardless. He rents a tuxedo for himself and goes to rent two, one for each of the boys, and sends Angel to get his wallet. When Angel returns, however, he is wearing not his long tee-shirt and boxers as he was previously, but instead a long skirt of Mama's, worn in this instance as a dress. Papa's eyes darken to the color of midnight, his face turning purple, and he gives Angel five lashes with the belt before taking both boys in the car to go get the tuxedos. Angel does not forget, however, the free feeling he experienced when twirling around in the skirt. He shares this with Tom later, but the little boy has nothing to say. So with no other recourse, Angel tells it to Mama, staring out his window into the sky and asking "why?"
His answer comes in a dream that night, but Angel cannot decipher what exactly Mama meant.
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Angel is nine.
In fourth grade, most boys have the impression that anyone who is different should be loathed by all. Angel, whose voice is quiet and eyes are insightful, who has little to say and no inclination to play "rough" at recess, is certainly different from the other boys. When mocking challenges are shot towards him such as "You a boy or a girl, Angel?", the boy says nothing and turns away, often to do his schoolwork or run his fingers up and down cuts and bruises on his arms. One day, however, Angel is ambushed after school on his way home by six boys, familiar names in the school and known for their strength and muscle. Lacking the inclination to fight anyone and having been conditioned to never fight back, Angel lies still as punches are thrown towards him. The boys grow quickly bored with him, and Angel returns home with a split lip and black eye. This is not an unnatural occurance in the Schunard home, however, because if it weren't the boys who did it to him, it would be Papa. Angel merely retreats to his room silently to work on his homework, uncaring. He knows that the bruises will fade with time, and considering how often he is beaten at home, the memory will probably do so as well.
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Angel is ten.
Now in his final year of elementary school, Angel's school is having a dance to celebrate. Wide-eyed, Angel shies away from the fliers and hopes that he will not be asked to attend, knowing that he has duties around the house to attend to. However, he is surprised when Papa permits – no, insists – that Angel go to the dance. Papa mutters something to himself about trying to make sure that Angel doesn't turn out to be a "faggot," but Angel does not know what that means and does not care to find out. He merely goes to school and shyly asks if the person he has thought of as "cute" for quite some time already has a date, or would like to go with Angel.
Angel is turned down, and as he stares at his feet, his invitee walks away, laughing with his friends. Angel spends the evening of the dance curled up in the bathroom, waiting for it to be over so he can go home and Papa will think that he spent the night dancing with pretty girls and having a good time.
However, that couldn't be farther from the truth.
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Angel is eleven.
After Papa's brief explanation of how babies are made, Angel asks how Tom happened without Mama. Papa storms away and leaves Angel with his questions, some of which involve how a baby could be created between two men, because Angel suspects that that might be his route of choice. After all, girls are "icky," even at eleven, and Angel cannot imagine doing anything with a girl beyond simple talking – and even that's a stretch. Although, he must admit to himself, they do dress well. Maybe, he thinks to himself, maybe I could be a girl. It makes sense in his undereducated eleven-year-old mind, because after all, if a baby can only be made between a man and a woman, and Angel likes boys, he should be the girl. Right?
When he presents his theory to Papa, he receives ten lashes. Angel returns to his room that night and, hopelessly confused, cries into his pillow.
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Angel is twelve.
For Halloween, the deeply-confused Angel decides that he is to try out his being-a-girl theory. He tells Papa that he will take Tom trick-or-treating, and upon departure from their house, both Schunard boys wear pirate costumes. Immediately after exiting, however, Angel ducks behind the building and changes into the costume of a princess, complete with a short black wig, skirt-dress, and pink slippers, all of which he took from Mama's closet. Tom gives Angel a curious look, but after a while, the two boys become comfortable in their setting, visiting houses and getting candy. Although Tom's pirate costume is conventional and loved, the unfamiliar neighbors are charmed by the princess taking "her" brother out for Halloween. Angel, delighted that he has managed to pass for a girl, successfully flirts with a boy from his class, Carlos, who does not recognize Angel and returns the flirting by staying with Angel and Tom for the rest of the evening.
Angel's first "date" is concluded with a kiss on the doorstep, and Halloween remains Angel's favorite holiday forevermore.
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Angel is thirteen.
One school day, Angel decides to repeat his Halloween act of changing into girls' clothing upon leaving the house. When he arrives at school, he receives strange looks and verbal abuse of all kinds, but when shaven-head notoriously intolerant football player Tim Mann continuously hassles Angel, the bright-eyed boy spins around and proclaims, "I'm more of a man than you'll ever be, Mann, so shut up." A new ending to this phrase comes years later, when Angel has been dressing like a woman for quite a while and has a default answer in mind.
When Angel neglects to change out of his skirt-dress before returning home that night, he and Papa have their first and last true verbal fight, where both voice their opinions and, heavens above – Angel comes out on top. Although Papa is stronger and fiercer than Angel could ever hope to be, Angel is smarter and certainly more staunch in his opinions. The boy tells Papa that at least he isn't wearing makeup, and a horrified Papa retreats to his room, complete with the company of cigarettes and The Bottles. Angel, satisfied, enters the bathroom and tries out his new idea of make-up, and is delighted to find that it works on him. The next day in school, he wears what is indisputably women's clothing, and is so proud and confident that nobody says a challenging word to him. Not a single bruise adorns his body when he returns home from school that day, Angel is proud to display, and not even Papa wants to pick a fight with this new Angel.
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Angel is fourteen.
When Papa threatens to resort to a new kind of abuse with this "girl," Angel, enraged, resorts to violence for the first time in her life. Later she will not remember exactly what she threw at Papa, but it was certainily something quite heavy and bearing with it enough force to slam Papa's head into the sofa and knock him unconscious. Immediately after doing so, Angel races to the bathroom to find Tom sitting there calmly, flipping through a schoolbook. Angel explains their predicament to her brother and somberly announces that she cannot live there anymore, that she is leaving. She invites Tom to go with him, nearly begging – "please, Tom, please come with me."
But Tom shakes his head and explains that even with a violent father, a nine-year-old is best at home. He wishes Angel good luck on her journey, and with a twinkle in his eye, says that "I'll never forget my sister." If either ever sees the other again, it is in passing, but Angel does react unexpectedly to any future mention of the name "Tom," never being able to forget the first person who recognized her journey in life, and the first person to ever affectionately acknowledge her gender of choice.