Looking back on what I’ve written so far, I realize I’ve gotten ahead of myself, skipped too much, probably for some reason I’m not fully prepared to name. 

Even now I’m tempted to go after the both of you in this letter, respond to some very interesting debates opening in the comments. I am fighting the urge, for instance, to tell you both how I started smoking again or to complain about the state of my backyard, how when the excavator came to dig the foundation for our little room addition he just spread the ton of clay and debris over our previously green quarantine oasis instead of hauling it away—doubt I could even seed grass in the stuff, just dust and rocks everywhere. I know, however, that there’s work to be finished, here on the page as in real life: the back end of our house here is all dust and nails and unfinished walls. No stopping now. Baby’s due <quote-01>Thanksgiving Day<quote-01> after all.

I’ve gotta see this story through to the end.

Let me return, then, to the conference at Homeboy Industries in LA two summers ago. This was just days after Esther showed me evidence that the gang leader inside Lulo was still alive, days after begging me not to confront him until she could get out of town. We were sitting on a utility counter, Lulo and I, smooshed together in the back of a packed banquet hall, both of us wearing the aqua conference t-shirts with Father Boyle’s advice on the back: “Ventilate the world with tenderness.”

Ten minutes earlier I was hiding in some dark office room at the conference center, sneaking an emergency video call with my therapist Lenny. This was not only the first slot he’d had available since I learned everything, but my only option before getting on a red-eye flight from LAX to Tokyo that night to meet my dad. 

When I’d begun laying out the basics, my therapist put his face in his hands.

He’d come to love Lulo through the stories I’d told in our first year of therapy together. He often asked me to pause and reflect on the things Lulo told me seemingly in passing each week: how—after years of mutual fidelity—this rare companion could so often “speak such goodness into [my] life.” <quote-02>“It’s remarkable how Lulo is able to see you and hold you with comments like that,” Lenny had said in an earlier session.<quote-02> When I was too self-critical, too angry at churches in general, Lulo would help me relax into the specific individuals who loved us in these churches, who worked with us and supported us, who made him laugh and smile. He delighted in them. And in me. Lulo often told me to worry less, to not work so late, to go home and take care of Rachel and baby Abram. Therapist Lenny often shook his head at this goodness, this ally in growth I had in my life.

Now I was having trouble breathing, I told him.

What was I feeling? Angry? Betrayed? Scared? Lenny told me all of those would be normal. He himself was pissed, he confessed, in a rare disclosure. Shock is a real experience, I remember him telling me. I wasn’t sure I could make it through the rest of the conference, I told him, then ten more days in Japan, then five more days in Utah with Lulo and two other homies, before being able to confront this, name this. I told him I wasn’t sure I could hold it in, hold my breath that long.

As I whispered my fears, texts from Lulo dropped in from the top of the screen: “where u at?”; then, “lookin for u bro”; then, “ima save u a seat in the back k?”

“Ventilate the world with tenderness,” I read again and again on the backs of those seated before us. I leaned into Lulo with all the weight I held. I put my head on his shoulder. He had become my best friend. I took another breath. <quote-03>I realized I was saying goodbye<quote-03>.

He, of course, didn’t know.

I see us there, both of us pretending we don’t know things, suspended in one last posture of mutual trust.

How did I know this was our last tenderness? I think I’d always known—somewhere deep inside that I couldn’t silence—that my friend did not have the capacity to be caught in a lie and own it, to make it right or begin the work of repair. <quote-04>Somewhere inside I knew<quote-04> my friend would not see the damage of his actions but would more likely armor-up in a protracted war of words—or something worse.

In your last letter, Wuck, I noted that moment where you resisted looking into the fake cell containing an extra in an orange jumpsuit. I wondered in the comments about some instinct to not transgress a sacred privacy—versus a simpler fear: that the person in a cell would go into attack mode at the unwanted gaze. Remember that? Well, I realized in this moment, sitting next to Lulo in the back of the plenary, that what motivated my silence around his many warning signs, my pretending, was not a finely tuned reverence for privacy and boundaries. It was simple fear. I was terrified. I knew there was a rage, maybe a cruelty, in my friend that I’d been tiptoeing around for years.

If I already knew this, I wondered, how had I walked this far with him? Called him friend? Fully supported him to join ministry leadership with me?

Therapy is telling secrets. Especially the ones we’ve kept from ourselves.

As I laid my head on Lulo’s shoulder a few seconds more, the temptation to return to the way things were was strong.

I could just bury this, I thought. I could swallow what I know.

As you experienced at your mother’s dining table, Murph, I am good at swallowing what I have to swallow so that people I love won’t be angry at me.  

You can imagine his surprise, then, when—after the panic attacks in Japan, the awkward silences while fly fishing in Utah, and the icy hours with the homies in the rental SUV back <quote-05>through the desert to our flight out of Vegas<quote-05>—I finally told him we had to talk, when I finally coughed up what I refused to swallow. 

I had two pages of notes on my laptop I’d amassed on trans-pacific flights and while up late in the Utah cabin: I named promises we’d made through prison glass, in pages and pages of handwritten letters, promises we’d refreshed stop after stop on our book tour. I had tears in my eyes. I was willing to deal with the misbehavior, I told him, even work through the deceit and betrayal. What I most feared, I said, stopping to catch my breath, was a refusal to face the music, to take responsibility and grow through this.

He was nice at first. He played it off: what a relief that he didn’t have to hide it anymore. Now we could get back to work, he said.

No, I told him—knowing the storm was about to begin. This could not get swept under the rug like it might at other slimy religious institutions, I said. Our board of directors would decide how to handle this, not us. I would stick by him, I told him, whatever period of suspension or amends they might ask him to make.

“The fuck you asking me to do?”

I told him it wasn’t my story to tell and to call the members of the board. I told him I wasn’t going anywhere.

When he called, however, he didn’t tell them he’d abused his power to steal the girlfriend of a man we served, nor that he’d threatened violence against that same girlfriend if she ever reached out to me. He didn’t tell them that handfuls of men we served in the valley knew about his maneuverings or that he’d told them all that I was cool with it. He was, in effect, leading a community of recovering men I’d served for over a decade to believe I supported his abuse of our organization in such a way: networking our clients into old affiliates’ drug dealing schemes, fooling his own family, hustling donors, cutting in on girlfriends of homies locked up, and brokering high-stakes prison politics in our valley and beyond—under the guise of “prison outreach”—in order to eliminate guys in his way.

I’m getting ahead of myself, of course; I didn’t know all of this yet. But I do know that Lulo shared precisely none of this with the board when I gave him some space that morning to make his calls. According to what I learned later that afternoon, he’d merely told the board about being a “little unfaithful” to his wife, and that he’d wanted to reach out and tell them because he felt so bad, and that he understood if they wanted to fire him from this work he loved so much.

The board members told him—one at a time, lovingly—things like “No, why would we?” and “We all make mistakes.” And while they appreciated his courage and transparency, they told him that such personal shortcomings were not technically part of their oversight as board members of the organization he worked for.

Afterwards, Lulo called me, raging at the humiliation I’d put him through needlessly. Why? He shouted over the phone. Just to humiliate him, denigrate him? Why? Because I was threatened by his gifts and growing leadership in our field? Because I was jealous and insecure compared to his emerging brilliance? He said that was it. He couldn’t work with me anymore. <quote-06>“Wait till the homies hear about this shit you just pulled.”<quote-06>

Though I was still afraid of narcing on my comrade—snitching on him—I called the board members myself. I told them about the woman who came to me, the fear in her eyes, the boyfriend in prison who’d been cut out, the abusive text history in her phone. Hating myself, I showed the six-month text scroll to the chair the next afternoon. He stopped halfway through; he’d seen enough. He said the board would need to meet and deliberate. He assured me it was in their hands now, that I’d done the right thing, and that it wasn’t my call moving forward.

Lulo interpreted their silent deliberation that week the way he wanted. That was his denial at work. He called a meeting with me and Ramon—who’d begun working with us by then—and played the same hand. Ramon was disappointed with me, really angry that I’d overreacted to a recovering homie simply texting with a woman other than his wife. Ramon’s tone, how he avoided eye contact with me, said a lot. Was I becoming a prude, judgy, church guy, eager to kick someone from the streets back to the curb? Staring at the threadbare carpet in our office, I feared he was right. Then I reminded myself that Ramon didn’t know anything other than what Lulo had told him.

I carefully asked—without spilling the beans in front of Ramon—what they both thought about ministry workers who cut in on homies’ girlfriends while they were locked up. Lulo put his feet up on his desk and sneered: <quote-07>Gavin<quote-07> wasn’t a homie anymore; since he’d dropped out of the gang a year or so ago, he was now a piece of shit. And I shouldn’t hold him—Lulo—or any other “real” homie to my personal white standards. That had always been my problem, he said and leaned forward. 

Since he was leaking more of the story in Ramon’s presence, I wouldn’t hold back then. I asked if he felt bad about anything he’d done.

<quote-08>“I’ma smash guts all day long.”<quote-08> He held his arms open wide, no longer hiding anything. “I love pussy. Always have. I’ll smash that shit till I die, I don’t give a fuck. Don’t tell me about marriage. That’s my and Selena’s business. You gotta worry about your own problems, Chris.”

Ramon’s brow began to furrow. I swallowed the rest of my thoughts and responses. <quote-09>My throat was aching<quote-09>.

The next day the board sent all three of us an email: they’d met at length and developed a proposed path forward. We would meet Monday morning at the large Presbyterian church in Everett where most board meetings took place—a four-story tower of brick and stained glass with a turquoise-bronze spire rising just higher than the new jail across the street.

Lulo said he’d drive alone, so I got the chance to tell Ramon the whole story on our own drive down, risking Lulo’s wrath at my telling even our coworker. “You serious?” Ramon said. He paused. “Motherfucker.”

On the fourth floor, in the fireside room, the board members sat around a large round table. When Lulo arrived, the three of us took our seats, a three-page proposal before each of our places. They began simply: the evidence of Lulo’s misconduct was cause for termination. However, they believed our in-house operations should reflect the same hope of restoration for those we serve. And so they offered a fully paid 90-day suspension period, during which Lulo would cease all contact with those we serve and meet with a counselor, marriage therapist, or spiritual director—all expenses paid—to help care for and address whatever underlying issues were prompting his behavior.

The board was almost apologetic in their tone, gently offering Lulo the rest of the week to think over their proposal in hopes he’d soon be restored to his position, possibly in greater health as an individual supporting men in recovery. The third page said Lulo had until the end of the week—Friday, 5pm—to notify the board of his answer and to provide a written proposal of what kind of personal work he’d consider most helpful.

We never went through the three pages together.

Lulo put on his best church-lobby smile and told everyone in the first couple minutes how grateful he was that they’d taken time to think through stuff like this—nodding toward the typed proposal—but he wasn’t interested. “I’m cool,” he said. “I never liked working with y’all, to be honest. Thanks for your time and everything, and your help in the past, Chris, but this organization is whack. I’ve actually had a really great last couple of days, talking with some different pastors who wanna work with someone like me and who value all I’ve got going, who aren’t focused on this kinda petty shit. Working with some of them sounds way better, honestly. It’ll just take a little time to transfer my shit over. So in the meantime,” he looked at his watch, “I actually got a job interview at the refinery lined up for today, so I gotta run. Really, thanks, everyone.”

He got up and shook all of our hands around the table, his arm stiff to resist any move towards a sudden goodbye hug, especially from me. He turned and pushed open the door to the stairwell.

Remember how I reacted at the cabin nine years ago, at my bachelor weekend, when my friends staged my nightmare scenario?

Ramon’s the only one who was at both these scenes. But this one wasn’t a prank. 

I sat at the table stunned for a moment before excusing myself. When I made it past that same door, I opened up into a sprint, chasing Lulo down the stairwell. I shouted after him, asked him what the fuck he thought he was doing, told him that our story doesn’t end this way, that he was a coward, that the shit he just pulled up there was the slimiest, most dishonest, insulting, bitch move I could ever imagine him making. He smiled and said, “Are you done? I gotta go.” The stairwell door opened above us. Ramon hopped down a flight of stairs, stopping behind me. I shoved my way past Lulo and stood two steps below him, blocking his exit. “Don’t do this,” I <quote-10>pleaded<quote-10>.

I reminded him how he’d told friends, homies, and strangers about the love his brother Chris had for him, about how he had a friend and pastor who had unblinkingly committed to standing in the way if he were to meet former rivals in the streets, even to taking a bullet if necessary. It was a story that meant the world to him, he’d said, a loyalty that had allowed him to risk a new life, a new direction.

“Why you gotta bring that up?” he asked now, trying to push me out of the <quote-11>way<quote-11>.

I pushed back. I felt decades of honed muscles, strength, under his t-shirt against <quote-12>my scrawny, freckled wrists and forearms<quote-12>.

“Don’t do this shit,” he stared, looming two steps above me.

I told him I wasn’t afraid of him, that even if he slammed my head against the brick stairwell, I’d recover in a few days. But it would take years to recover from the crushing move he was threatening now. I told him it wasn’t a bullet I needed to stop but his pride. “And you’re damn right I’m standing in the way of that right now,” I said, every word shouted.

To my amazement, he took a deep breath, looked up the stairwell, and walked back up to where the board and their offer still waited.

Ramon told me to just chill out there in the stairwell with him. Give them time to talk. Church secretaries politely stepped over us on their ways to and from the preschool on the second floor and the copy machine on the third. I wondered how much they’d heard, if the police had been called, maybe.

After an hour of waiting, Ramon and I headed home—hopeful.

Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday, however, passed without my hearing from Lulo. On Friday afternoon the chair texted me. “Any word?”

I called him to ask what their extended meeting in the upper room had covered. He told me, sadly, that Lulo spent most of the time talking about how he and I had very different visions for the organization and that he wanted full pay for a year to develop a new nonprofit. “His ability to avoid talking about what he’d done was almost impressive. Of course, he never showed any <quote-13>responsibility or remorse<quote-13>.” He said Lulo mentioned maybe going down to southern Texas, where his wife’s extended family lived. They’d had a good vacation there earlier in the summer, and maybe they could make a fresh start. “We kept trying to bring him back to the document, our offer. We asked him to do what he felt was best, not to make any of us happy, and to let us know by Friday 5pm.”

It was Friday, half past four when we hung up.

A few minutes later Ramon sent me a screenshot of a text from Lulo: just a goofy greeting saying what’s up. Then we saw on Lulo’s Instagram account a short video of him getting off an airplane in the Houston sunset looking happy as ever.

5pm arrived. “I guess that’s his answer,” I said. Ramon and I sent group-texts to the board members, who texted back that we’d convene next week to finalize the termination and move forward.

I slumped onto the couch with Abram and Rachel, a bit numb. I’d decided in the week of waiting that even if Lulo came back with hat in hand, I was done. That panic in the stairwell had emanated from the small child inside me that didn’t want to do this work alone. The boy who stood in the foyer of his childhood home several times when his <quote-14>parents had a fight<quote-14> and <quote-15>his dad stormed<quote-15> from their bedroom, grabbing his keys off the entryway shelf on his way out the door. The boy who didn’t know if his father would ever come back. I was always too small to stop him, too paralyzed after gripping my LEGO space jets or Nintendo controller through the yelling, too breathless to say anything—standing in my socks just beyond the slamming front door and wondering if I had a father anymore, if I knew how to hold the home together with just my mom and big sister. Hours earlier I was probably finishing a report on mummies.

<quote-16>The more I get in touch with that little boy<quote-16>, the less I’m controlled by those old fears. So, by this time, I felt ready to let Lulo go, to begin the grieving process. 

Lulo’s flight south was, at least, a clear answer, a clear end. His decision. Anyway, the Dodgers’ playoff game was about to begin and Abram was excited.

It was the next day, I now realize, a Saturday night—no game—when I got the text from the Mexican jail that concluded my last letter. Exhausted, I showed the text to Rachel, whose eyes begged me not to rush into rescuer-mode. I shook my head. I felt almost nothing. Lulo texted back that he’d gotten a hold of his wife, Selena. I was off the hook.