Chapter 9: Carlos
“Hey, Carlos, can you help me with something?” my assistant, Joel, calls from outside my office. Joel has worked with me at Angels, an AIDS charity, for the past ten years, and is, by necessity, a jack-of-all-trades. It’s how it works for most everyone on staff here. Joel, for example, proofreads the newsletter on HIV awareness I put together every month. He bags meals for the folks we deliver them to. And he answers the phone, directing our clients to the pair of caseworkers we have on staff.
I get up from my cluttered desk and look at Joel, standing near the back door. He’s such a handsome guy, all of thirty, with dark brown hair he wears buzzed close to his skull, a thick beard, and tattoos just about everywhere I can see. Sigh. If I were only a few years younger, I
