It's curious the manner with which two people in a relationship can have such differing versions of transpiring events; or for that matter, be together and feel for one another, yet still be diametrically opposed. What is it that enables?
Is this Henry and X, or is my fact seeping into this fiction? Tune in next week ... same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel.
Is this Henry and X, or is my fact seeping into this fiction? Tune in next week ... same Bat-Time, same Bat-Channel.
Princess Leia (Fallas-style)
Playa el Saler (Google Street View)
Chapter 14: Torrent. La Cucaracha.
Hung. Apparently there had been a knock on our door, but I had my doubts; it was 11-in-that-AM and we’d missed the initial desperta, the grand waking of the various neighbourhoods by each falla. I reeked of self-inflicted Fortunas and lemoned rum but felt somewhat happy once I shook my head a few times. I was still in Spain. I squinted, focused and saw that X’s bed was already empty, made tight.
This was the Saturday of ceremonial moving of representing saint out of storage and over to the main church in Torrent: her name be not necessarily Mary, just reinstated virgin; but religion, and me aware of little of it despite the Jesus Years.
And this was lovely Spain out the window; I threw on some jeans, stepped barefoot.
“I’m sorry,” I offered to Frances - X and café con leche to her beside. “We didn’t get up. We were supposed to get up for the …thee umm… wake-up call. Chusko’s gonna call me a pussy, or the Spanish equivalent. Was there a knock? I don’t remember any knock. Did you hear one, X?” She hadn’t, or so said and smiled. They shared a laugh.
“Do you see me?” Frances was barefoot as me. “Look at me – I’ve been up for about oh …twenty minutes; so you can relax, mister. No one’s going to shun you; but, yeah, maybe Chusko might have a few choice names to call you.” I smirked and flexed my nipples, rocked back and forth on the balls of my feet. This was good, all was good in the first mornings of this foreign country of two friends. “You have to work your way up to this, Henry. This is my first year back in how long …and …you see.” The tired ballerina presented self, turned head to X and pulled a smile up the left side of her face. Relax I did; leered X in the eye and declined a café, refused leche, accepted the fresh squeeze of a Valencia orange juice - a strong Screwdriver without the vodka that proved the death knell for one John Bonham of a certain Led Zeppelin band. Sorry.
The door slow slammed and carried the baritone of his voice down hallway and into kitchen. “¡Hola? Onray, where you at?”
“Duardo, I am so very sorry. I missed the knock. Perdón. I am very sorry: But I am relaxing.” This All said to the bags beneath eyes of my Spanish guardian angel. What a lovely man I had disappointed that fine morning; a manly thing, I suppose - the drinking and stinking till dawn coupled with the ability to still awake on a dime.
“Ah. Onray Onray.” He has the biggest eyes behind Coke bottles; round and tired that morning. “You do Fallas …and then you die. Ok? Simple?” I buried my wimpy head into the tall glass of vitamin C.
Yes, this was all a great Funny at my expense. This man was my salvation; he snickered and coughed and slapped his big, hairy Spanish hand on my back, lent me his night-before breath. I was tranquil. He was smiling, handing me a box of petardos - brand name Cobra, birthday candle-sized igniters of ephemeral joy and a powder that stays on one’s hands and reminded me of having to clear Customs on the way back.
And this some of the rest of mine: the girls went shopping for bargains in dollar stores. X absolutely needed a glass perron - the large jug used for purposes of consuming liquids, alcohol: its thin spout a freestyle sipper; Frances had one in her kitchen and for awhile the boys chased the girls around the streets of the suburb of Valencia known as Torrent searching for one. And then we didn’t. And then just we two men strolling neighbourhoods minus strip mall or even 7-11. Without separation of culture far away from centre of large Valencia; Quaint, yes, and this is the part where I don’t talk about bull fighting - its corrida that exists in Valencia and where we eventually went outside time of killing …merely within the safe museum viewing of a Later.
After that Saturday of me and Duardo and produce corners; small stores and their fresh goods of what I remembered my first time in New York City proper: Manhattan. Ethnicity. Apartments everywhere. Much as this particular Spain. And I recall tiny Spanish grandmothers hunched over there in Torrent, rolling and squeezing fruit and veg and using sight and smell to discern quality - experience passed on and taken up; their struggle to convert peseta to Devil’s euro. Conversation amongst a community of strengths and weaknesses - the mingling family and its ever-tight knot that Frances and I had talked about at Maxwell’s restaurant once upon. The differences between marriage and living in sin - the commitment. If there is no love, far better to cut loose than hang around: these were the words that left my North American mouth, X by my side and agreeing. Frances had nodded and admitted that she figured I might say that; hers a thought process that had been on an ocean plane three or six times round-trip. Yes, she had dated more than once or twice - in Canada, and she had known what love was in the pre-Duardo, but she didn’t go as far as to call Ours fast food dating …only the certain lacking that stood out to someone who truly understood both sides.
“What you think about, man?” I love the way Duardo says ‘man’ in the high register, and I almost told him what my brain was fondling there in the middle of his hometown street. I suppose the language stopped me - his English is good, but this was love and the precise voicing of; perhaps I underestimated the ability to transcend. Perhaps I was shy enough to let opportunity pass me by, right there - away from X, away from Frances. Just two guys. I could have told him that I was frisky for others and gotten away with it, but I smiled and put my arm around him, said the word ‘women’ and left it at that as we rounded up the girls for afternoon siesta.
To yet another small cubbyhole. Red house wine and splashes of gaseosa - a soda that makes spritzer. Tapas: vegetarian for X, but seafood Ok. Duardo by my side, my mouth full of freshness.
And this is the part where I should let the others speak.
“Si. Si,” said Duardo, that there was still plenty of time to pick up the outfits, their costumes for the moving of the saint. “Onray was thinking about woman. He stop in the middle of the street, Francesca, and he say to me ….‘woman.’” And then that laugh. And then mine, the others. “Onray, why you think about woman? You not allowed to think about woman when you have one …already.” And then my snort. And still more of my laugh, then the others. I gave her an eye, our hazel met; from across the table in that tiny madre-y-padre she had the nerve to giggle her ass off. I had the will to continue a scene still devoid of script, ad-lib where necessary.
“Was this soft women thought, or hard women thought?” I actually thought about answering that one of Frances’, but she could not have known that I was picturing her in that Ottawa bar of hers, explaining the ability to hang in. I wasn’t sure that siesta allowed for love; perhaps I was just shy enough to keep my mouth full of alcachofa - artichoke, and some fish I never did catch the name of.
“Duardo, you can’t be doing this shit. Guy talk is sacred, and you can’t be going and telling the other side, amigo.” I soft smacked him and put him in a loose headlock, drank wine with my free hand. I distracted and performed X my best tourist smile. Duardo broke free and yanked out a handkerchief, rubbed his Coke bottles clean. Wonderful.
“He likes the women, Duardo, he just doesn’t like talking about the women.”
“Not so,” said by me to X. “I talk about the women all the time.”
“Just because you’re talking doesn’t mean you’re saying anything.” X had gone and confused Duardo - but Frances was accustomed to leaning over as she did and explaining the various idioms of the English language; it was cute. Caring, well into the relationship. Fantastic.
“Onray, it’s Ok. From now on - we stick together, me and you. Men. Man.” He puffed his chest and held out his hairy right hand for me to shake, which I grabbed and quickly kissed. I distracted and accepted his unknowing offer to change the subject.
But. “What is soft women? What is hard women?” X waved her hand around an imaginary dividing line between something said in all innocence. She turned and spoke this: “Frances, what did you mean, girlfriend?” She poked, and the other poked her back. Yes, the beauty of siesta and absolutely not a thing to do on a warm March day but grapple with a truth: “I’m not soft. I am not a soft woman, really, but I can be when I have to, if I have to.” She was telling the truth; her life was a country song up until we met - I was her longest running Shine before the breath began to leave her again. The musical bridge, I suppose, and now the refrain, the tear in my beer, the accumulation that was not necessarily a soft woman; but her hand to loose change in purse every single step down Elgin Street of beggars. And this: she generally never cried for movies, much of anything. There was the one time, but I believe that was when one or both of us had gotten into the vino and brought up said country song, a verse she’d told me about. This particular one of us had done mentioned that they could understand the words - now that they, too, were within song of hers. This is rather vague without me trying to convince You that I never ever nagged her about her libido. I could continue to imply this lie but I seem to remember being beyond that realm now.
“Of course you are, can be. Most of us are both. Even guys. You manly men can be both soft and hard - as difficult as it may sound,” Frances’ chin trailing off into a side-mouth snicker.
“Amen, chica.” And Duardo at the side for that say of mine, unaware that X once had the presence of mind within situation to remain her wedding ring on natural slugging hand: that she had crept on down certain hallway and came upon a door - the moans had lit the way. She’d kicked open the door of her bedroom in shared apartment and crossed the five or six feet that was the distance between adultery and dealing with it - a Southern twang in this that there background of hers that all happened in the before-me. And she had followed through - slugged husband him and her naked half-sister, left a mark for their look in the mirror. Another verse for me to quote from in times of need. “Yeah, I’m mostly soft,” said me. “Duardo? You?”
“No, no …me, I am the hard man in front of you. Look. Touch me, Onray. No, I am hard man.” Funny. But I have never been in their bedroom for those private moments most of us keep from public for the most part, try to. This was all so much coffee talk amongst friends. And it began to rain ever so. We finished the wine that is usually never drunk outside of meals. We shared the bill, left the coinage as a tip despite my stare and uneasiness but such was is the general way outside of North America.
Through the light rain we skipped, headed for Duardo’s parent’s apartment built of brick - not house with wooden roof - to pick his black suit out of closet and present for fresh ironing: La cucaracha - the cockroach - it was referred to as, tuxedo in style and somewhat nontraditional for the festival. We laughed and Frances translated the absolute lack of English speak for us. Wonderful bouncing of a back and forth. Yes, we were the Canadians - the friends, Henry and X. I produced a real smile to the father shorter than Duardo but solid, pleasant and saying the words Fallas or falla at many points - my every sixth or seventh of recognition amongst the quick talk of locals. I continued to smile, as did X, compensating for the Spanish language that eluded us; I even nodded at her. United in lost. Duardo’s mother, she having double-kissed us all through the doorway, handed him his suit with a single hug. And if it is of absolute primary concern, the shade of her hair was pink: she had gone nuts, been committed to an insane asylum, climbed the wall and ran all the way home. Her first purchase had been a small box of Kool-Aid; and with the help of boiling water, she had dunked and dyed her normal wisp of brown a funky range of pink - the family was scandalized but chose to ignore it and hope it went away …for that’s what families do. Wait out phases. I am sorry, I really should have thought that fact from the beginning.
But there is a difference between lying. Yes, the truly outrageous and the little white ones, the mere omissions.
We were the Canadian couple, vacationing friends of Duardo and Frances. His nice mother bid us a nice, sane good-bye en Español and so, yes, I occasionally make up stuff or fail to correct something - an oversight.
We were the Canadian couple that never held hands; the two that smiled with the eyes for we were happy, for we knew to twitch the muscle of the crow’s feet. We were the content two behind the door of guest room with two separate, single beds. A certain lack of language that hindered and helped our cause.
On the terrace of the apartment of Eduardo y Francesca, we two men drank beer and stared over a park with palms while the girls went a few floors down to have Frances’ hair fussed and coiled at her mother’s apartment. It had begun to rain once more, over the occasional Pop of petardo on a Saturday afternoon. I viewed the Mediterranean in the far off, the Gulf of Valencia proper; giant loading cranes to our north, near blue hills growing to grey sierra in the far south. I pointed the wet horizon and Duardo would explain the distant islands of Mallorca and Ibiza - the party places, the discos and birthplace of techno, the orgies. Let’s go, I said, despite that All. No no, he told me: a boat, a long ferry over very choppy waves. He put his finger to his mouth and held back fake vomit. There was a beach, he motioned, towards the middle of picture - Playa el Saler. Nudity, I asked. “No, no nipple, but it nice, not busy now …and … ¿clean?” Yes - clean, I agreed; let’s go. We had time: it would only take him three-and-a-half minutes to strap on la cucaracha - the advantages of male and a quick comb through the hair; we could phone them on the cell from the car. “Buddy,” I added, “come on.”
In the tiny elevator, in the parking garage, driving the short hop to the expressway at a very high rate of speed. Past the olive trees and giant potatoes of Spanish roadside - the maybe future martinis of the world that would allow me to forget, try to remember the name of a female being brought out that night for the eventual offering of flowers to her saintly self. This my head within dialect and into an unknown area of twists and turns of the steering wheel; zooming past a children’s school quiet on weekend and time of festival; the smell of rain and the approach of a sea comprised of much salt.
Over wooden walkways, through familiar pines and past designated campsites. Amongst exposed roots of knotted trees battered by unadulterated wind. Beyond the restaurant and tourists beneath umbrella on table complete with server without the tip. With my Nikes finally in the dirty white sand, toe-kicking the occasional bottle cap. Bending over for the grab and throw of flat rocks, the attempts at slicing the Devil’s back with a long, high give to the sea.
We conversed: his new job working on web designs, myself still the bartender; our shared Ottawa friends and me with the obligatory questions that sent him searching for a word he could barely pronounce. What a wonderful man there by my side.
Forgotten bits of wood washed ashore. Sand dunes and hidden clusters of necking teens, the sweet smell of yerba bueno. “Before the lottery, before the jobs had panned out - worked out - were you guys doing alright? Were you still happy with the return to grand Spain?” My shoes and socks were now in my hands; my white toes scrunching the deposits from Mediterranean.
“Yes yes. Me with my family and Frances with her mother and sick father. It was maybe not always fun for Frances …she miss the people more, the time at Maxwell’s. That fun for her but not same thing here for her.” She had told me in the beforehand that it was would be different, the bar scene that is. Aside from the tipping, aside from women generally not partying on their own. “Ottawa is a great time, man. You like it, but this is a Spain. This is a mine.” I supposed he had answered my question; pictured home and thought of my old high school in the semi-burbs, growing up familiar and an older brother to be there for purposes of idolizing. I remembered seeing X out of her bar uniform for the very first time - a girl all snappy in her civvies. We’d kissed open-mouth, that night in front of her shared apartment across the Rideau Canal and into Sandy Hill, amongst the university students - our collective Guinness breath cancelling each other's out. I had stalked her in the politest of manners; not with camera or ogle, not even bad poetry - that would come later. No, I had merely presented myself in full view. “Everything is Ok, Onray? You thinking again, are you?” I’d picked up a choice piece of wood by then, another prop for the talking with friend.
“Women, Duardo. Women.” I did boomerang a thought five miles into the Gulf, close enough to be Mediterranean by my figuring. We walked some more, collected those tiny various of sea shells one always sees washed up; I took a rough count and marched through an imaginary crowd towards the ebb and flow of one drop of water. “Give me a second,” I asked, working my way in up to my shins, seven tiny empty homes in my palm - cracked, shucked and discarded by something bigger than their owners. A pause; and a toss and their return to sea, courtesy me. “I have this customer, a friend at my bar who always makes me say hello to the sea for him. The, ah, Caribbean, and now - the Mediterranean, I guess. He’s done the Adriatic and the English Channel as well. He gives me ten bucks per, just on pure principle - but I ask and he can’t explain that to me. Just principle, he says to me - so I am not the only weird one, Duardo. We’re everywhere.”
“Maybe this crazy drunk man is doing it for you. Onray, look at the sea.” Perhaps I looked. But I would still be returning to that bar at the end of this All, handing Harry the worn out ten spot that I always refuse to spend. It would be closing time, in the semi-burbs, and Harry would stumble home while I returned towards downtown, to my Centretown of one of two particular Oaks on Bank; across the way from X’s former and current Elgin Street joints.
“Maybe, Duard, just maybe.” But friendly Harry still there at High School Bar and Grill, years after having given up the theatre - building its various sets for the National Arts Centre, the behind it All that audience watch from plush seat. “Hey, you have any weed back at the casa, amigo? Hmm?” I was beginning a mood. We were strolling south, our eyes towards the sierras; teen coupling number 3 dry-humped themselves up against a sand dune to our right. Wonderful. I grabbed Duardo’s hand.
He would get me the dope.
After changing the subject, after taking a deep breath for the both of us. When back in the car and headed at high speed down the expressway on the outskirts of the metropolitan Spanish city of Valencia. When the coast was clear, I was to tell him. I was to open my mouth and have Say.
At the turnoff for Torrent. As I watched the gate to their underground parking slowly conceal itself behind a wall. In that tiny elevator that I mentioned in the before. As we walked through the door together, our two girls sharing a glass of red wine outside of a meal. To the return of rain sounding its way in through the open doors to their fabulous terrace.
“Look at her hair. Look …at her hair. Cool, eh?” X swung both her arms to showcase the part made down centre of head, the hidden spiral at rear that constituted Frances’ presentation hair. Classy, was the word that left my mouth; yes, that’s what I gave before I coughed and asked Duardo for a pen - went in search of my wallet, my licence. I had been of the thought of my donor card the whole high speed ride home; thinking of my heart, my poor liver. What the authorities would salvage. The eyes being rather Ok; the heart physically fine. The liver a most probable write-off, an unknowing receiver of cancerous cyst.
So I lay on my separate bed and silently signed my name in Spain, gave my autograph away in the before: Henry James Deza - spelled to the way it sounded.
With the rain and the obvious rhyme. With X and our disposable camera snapping Frances’ photo and forwarding to next. With the rain and the unraveling of canvas awning for terrace; with lots of time before the walking of community streets to transplant thee Virgin in proper place - and it would only take Duardo three-and-a-half minutes to strap on the cockroach suit. With the rain in this obvious rhyme, I helped Duardo roll a fatty, replete with Ottawa filter torn from pack of Spanish smokes. We lit and I reclined into a steel patio chair. We inhaled and were joined by the girls under a canopy away from rain in Spain. The rhythm of its fall over our heads; I toked and hoped, passed to the right within our sheltered circle. We mellowed and sat amongst plants with Latin names, a propane bbq with European hook up; listened to the simple drops make a cumulative of nature. We giggled as the phone rang and giggled as no one really wanted to get up.
But the Spanish don’t answer with a Hello or an Hola: Si, or maybe buenos tends to happen into my ear of memory from time spent there. The tiny things that stick for no good reason; the person on the other end of the line telling Duardo that the transplanting had been postponed due to that rain and obvious rhyme - for the first time in years. X grabbed the camera and made Frances pose for the response: all made-up and now very glum, then. We finished said joint and hit the telephones; they would combine the transplanting with ofrenda and its offering of flowers to the saint, on the Sunday that was next day. Splendid. Disappointing, but still to happen for them and me to see; I sucked hard and opened my mouth to reassure everyone that everything would be alright. I felt somewhat certain of this; I smiled and all others seemingly returned same.
On this night when we would get seriously fucked up. When the wine would flow outside of proper meal; when we hit the elevator and walked the streets without her formal costume, maybe only wearing checkered pañuelo and black blouson with tied knot resting above navel. Jeans. Within the wet streets of a rain in this Spain, to the surface of a sidewalk with nary a worm but many a flooded snail. “What ..the ..fuck?” Yes, them were big and small future escargots bubbling to the fore, and yes, people did collect and cook them on occasion. Wonderful. Truly wonderful and weird.
For Trinidad to put sugar on their popcorn, for poutine to be a French of Canadian.
To the stagger of tall palms lining straight way to clubhouse pronounced casalet; we walked in that continuous rain of rhyme up to familiar cerveceria pit stop, watched some soccer and departed with our absolutely necessary foiled-wrapped bocadillos. Forward toward; one final left of turn and up the back alley of cement two- and three-stories, low slung electrical wires displaying the festive yellow, blue, and red of colour flags hung beforehand with help of local falla and foot upon shoulder, lean over balcony. We four staggered arm in arm, me on one end, X the other.
I was quite prepared to enjoy the nightlife, would watch the eventual boogie with the rum and lemon-flavoured Schweppes in my hand. I believed that the truth was no longer important at said moment: was high in Spain, for god’s sake. Beautiful. And I let it go, moved my mouth into the shape of a grin as fat Chusko and tall Andamio grabbed for me when seen moment away from Duardo and loving girlfriend by name of X. I accepted that they were giving me a dressing down; was picked up and carried back out the rear door of the casalet, one of them on each my arms. “Perdón, perdoneme,” was my great contribution to Act 1 Scene 1 before the sit down to dinner. I gestured the two hands of having slept in, but petardos were lit, and a masclet - an even larger firecracker with a flash the size of a fist - blown off right up my ass; I was slightly deafened and they were laughing. They mocked my sleepy sign and performed a fist-to-mouth, the international for fellatio: they kept saying française, française - a Spanish slang for that which I owed them. Fun stuff Guy stuff. Great. And we made with the more exchange of swear words - that grand inevitability of travel. They spent the rest of the night trying to wrap their tongues around the English of ‘fudge packing’ and ‘blow job’ - the j sound not quite natural to them.
We would eat, and we would talk and I so promise to allow You what X said. I assure that at some point she opened her mouth, looked directly at me and spoke the words which I will not say without aid of black marker used to write on disposable table covering; their version of my given name finally then on expendable paper, beside Duardo, across from X. The tiny fallero major arrived and we did eat, talked in broken bits of one another’s language. We motioned and used a shrug, a smile. And I’ve heard that Johnny Carson used to up and sit in the corner at Tinseltown parties.
We ate and I talked to Duardo between bites; the girls a mix of English, Spanish, and Sophia’s Parisian French. I strained. It was loud, and as I’ve said, a few hundred people, Spaniards floating within the last of my buzz. A friend, a Pepé of name I remember for I thought of a small part of a cactus sitting in the corner of my then shared apartment. This person of my inherited group kept trying to talk to me; this small man - my age with cropped hair - kept trying and I would listen and eventually, through my interpreters, managed to ask me about my country and occupation. I placed eyes on his hot girlfriend or wife; she smiled back and that was about it until whenever a bottle opener was needed and they invariably turned towards me the bartender and performed the necessary gesticulation for one. I shrugged and waited for Duardo to again turn my way amongst a large group of unknowns, slightly knowns.
Outside, in the rain of rhyme, the smoke from a Fortuna snuck to my flannel - my unofficial Canadian flag worn for warmth beneath blouson. Cigarrillos and a light from borrowed Zippo. My brain hurt from memorizing a string of nouns and names, friendly faces; nicotine for a pot smoker who didn’t smoke. Excuses. Reasons not to dance. Ways of avoiding X and being close enough.
We made the by then usual rounds that night, a somewhat circuit. In the back alley, leaned against the garage doorway of the bajo, I swirled a plastic cup baring the letters ONRAY scribbled in black. I maybe tilted my head back and felt down for the side of X’s blouson, gave it a slight tug as she talked to the Sophia of perfect butt. X turned and squinted her eyes; we’d all been drinking, consuming nature, listening and sometimes playing along to the music streaming out the back door of casalet. Thus this she did croon me: “If you want my body …and you think I’m sexy, come on Sugar tell Me so.” An explosion of recognition kicked over propped-up motorcycles and rejoiced the gathered in garage; my god, Rod Stewart in Spain - them singing along in perfectly memorized English. Wonderful what a single, innocent touch to an ex will do for the festivities. I mumbled along in the background, did some onomatopoeia to properly follow her stage presence of pumped left shoulder, raised left arm straight. And it was Fallas, after all. Fun.
“What is it?” directly into my eye, then the other.
“Oh, nothing.” And I was not quite that smooth, but my memory slips me on occasion.
“Are you sure?”
I nodded, assured her face. I asked if she were enjoying herself - tacitly implying an anything. We exchanged another fairly normal hazel of eye for a moment, a polite passing given the lubrication involved. I grabbed the 26er of Bacardi off the smorgasbord table of booze and tipped it into her very own plastic cup with scribbled X, dropped in a few extra cubes of hielo purely for class. “Say when,” as I mixed the Schweppes for her. Fantastic. We were talking. And this is the part that I promised to think to You.
“Good. No - when,” she said. She actually used them exact words, no bit of a lie. “Do you want a cigarette?” She opened up and handed me one, just that simply. I took a light off her and blew a wisp of Fortuna smoke towards; she waved it away but I firmly believed there was something more afoot. The manner of twitch, the thoughts of her that I can only begin to try and convey: not an exact green, nor a brown - ‘twas my very own shade of that coloured light known as her hazel. But sorry: the circle that surround iris, her particular injury dot within right eye that restored my interest in iridology - a hokey but romantic comic book that I allowed myself once the while to stuff into back pocket. The theory that experience has a permanent place in the eye.
“Go on, girl, say something.”
“Such as?” She tilted forward, ever so, and used her free left hand to twirl me some air for more; but the blouson had covered her cleavage, the pañuelo placed on head had robbed me of mostly all her long, auburn hair. I had to make do with lovely face - and the past that allowed me entry into it.
“Oh, nothing, I was just trying … I was just trying.” And she is nowhere near a mean person; my description of rapprochement is spoken in my head - not hers.
“Are you Ok?” She motioned towards my plastic drink at whatever-in-that-AM, the rain falling slightly in and upon a rhyme that I refuse to say: to the left, Chusko and blonde girlfriend and Andamio by his lonesome; the squishing of empty cups and the chant of what was taught to me at an earlier squat - Salut y Força al Canut, that is to say Health and Power to the Penis …but then there is the matter of translation and its intrinsic loss.
A tiny man called Piso was seen hugging his brother Jacinto;
Francesca and Sophia watched and laughed at drunken males doing what drunken males do the globe over. Other stuff too - all to the symphonic Pop Pop of petardos.
“No biggy, baby. We’re in Spain, aren’t we? All is good - sorry - well.” And as I speak, I have the absolute beauty of embellishing this past, smoothing out those rough edges.
“She’s pretty, isn’t she? Sophia.” I shook my head to this and motioned towards the wedding ring on that girl’s finger. “That’s not what I’m asking, Hen. I’m saying that I would almost sleep with her.” This was a joke, an aside said to prevent dead air; she bulged her eyeballs in a mock sense of outrage, playfully walked us over to casalet. Back to the dance and them upstairs toilets without seats - girls half-standing to pee; back to an eventual blending, a hiding that probably would have occurred even without the language barrier. Maybe. Whatever.
At a certain point I made it known that I was tired, that I possessed a wish for sleep. I arranged through Duardo and avoided the terrible two of fat Chusko and tall Andamio; was given a lift home by Brooklyn Jacinto and shown how to punch in a security code, told how to open a dead bolt then unlock the bottom regular. With time I would pass out, into the spot between tired and dream - the whole apartment mine.
The spare keys had been left in a visible find, the door had been locked behind myself: all was safe. And I vaguely recall closing my eyes together.
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