Makinilya

The Extra

2008-11-07T20:19:00.000-08:00

The Extra

I was in a square windowless cage with a bed and on the bed there was a man about twice my age.

I lowered my duffel by one corner of the room, minding the scuttling cockroach that went through a crack in the wall. My watch chirped that it was four in the morning. He looked at me and said that in a half an hour, my life would change forever.

“Is this your first time?”

Yes, I said.

“I've been doing this for a while and I know that one of these days, I'm gonna make it. No more of these stupid broken down hotels. I am going to go first class all the way.”

I nodded and smiled, my people skills hampered by the 4:30AM call time. Outside our door, I heard a woman laugh, followed by a gruff male voice. American, from the accent. A sailor, as far I can tell, by the way whores were lined up and down the street mumbling that a ship just docked.

I made my way up the staircase with the creaking boards and peeling paint. Fluorescent lights flickered over the stained green carpet, from mold I wasn't sure. The man in the room was still looking at me as I sat at the edge of the bed.

“Do you know what you're supposed to be?”

Yes, I said. I got the script the other day and I'm just one of the extras. One of the students in the jungle.

“I'm a rebel,” he said. He dressed the part in a camouflage shirt and acid-washed jeans.

”I'm one of the rebels living in the jungle, hating the government and people like you,” he said, “in the movie.”

A nervous laugh escaped my throat. The heat in the room was becoming unbearable and I started to sweat.

“So, are you from Manila?” he said.

No.

Well, yes, I said. I go there for school but I was born and raised here.

“What a coincidence, I was born and raised here too.”

There was a slight dusting of brown on his black hair, which I thought at first was just the lighting in the room but I could tell from the shape of his eyes and the fairness of his skin that he was mixed. Mixed like me.

The role isn't too far off, now is it? I said.

“No, not really,” he said. “I told you, I've been doing this a while but I've always been type-casted as an Amerasian, and not the good kind either. You know what I mean, you've lived here.”

Yes, I know what you mean, I said.

The homeless bastard children, the ones smoking crack and shooting heroin. Sons and daughters of whores left to rot, unwanted souvenirs from a night of drunken solicited sex, a business liability. The same story at every port city. Some make it out, others don't.

“I'm supposed to not amount to anything in these films,” he said. He lit a cigarette and offered me a stick. I took it just to make him feel at ease. I was looking out for myself, health be damned.

“Funny how life imitates art, doesn't it?” he said.

I smiled. It really was too early to do anything but.

“But one day, I'm gonna make it,” he said. “Bust out of this shitty life and make a name for myself.”

A knock on the door rattled it hard enough to shake a cockroach loose from the frame. It fell to the floor with an audible tap. A head poked in. A production assistant.

“Let's go guys, we have a van waiting downstairs, sorry for the wait,” she said.

No problem, I said. A half hour wait is worth it to put everything in perspective.

Normal

2008-10-12T19:50:00.000-07:00

Normal

Music

2008-10-09T22:56:00.000-07:00

Music

Another nameless night in the valley. Another nameless club, in a nameless alley. I move through the anonymous crowd, clicking the flint wheel of my lighter.

The lighted end of my cigarette burns a bright red ember and I soak in the essence of everything and nothing all at once. Disposable lives, men with disposable dates, making love to their pockets. Everywhere I look, shadows all around. The pulsing strobe cuts through movement like a frozen frame of time.

Flash and my lips meet my cigarette.

The bright red flares to a dreary gray only to live once again in the brief interlude of dark light. I exhale a plume of white death and the man beside me reaches in his pocket for a single. He walks up to the stage and takes a seat by the rail. He looks straight in the eyes of Lilith on the dance floor. She curls and she writhes, making passionate love to anyone in reach. The man extends a hand and touches her alabaster skin, fingers the red lace garter by her knee and leaves the keepsake single, the best he's ever spent. Lilith slithers to her generous benefactor and lands a peck on his cheek. He looks straight in her eyes and sees nothing. A void.

Flash and I swig my beer.

I let the cheap alcohol swirl in my mouth, making it beg for something stronger. The bottle sweats and it clings to my hand. I hold onto it like a life preserver and I brave the storm of greasy elbows and even cheaper cologne. A dazed little tart in a slinky black dress cuddles up to me with a tray of bright colored drinks. An empty glass overflows with fives and tens. I take a test tube from a rack and down green liquid I hoped would make me invincible. Sweet and tangy, an aftertaste of rancid rum and desperation, I feel it down my throat and gut. I take another swig of my beer. The ember at the end of my cigarette burns bright red.

Flash and Alyssa comes on stage.

The music growls and images of drilling rigs play on the projector. Towers of flame sprout like weeds in the wind and Alyssa is in the middle of all this chaos. She holds the pole and turns, the imprints of civilization making their mark on her fair skin and dark hair. The mother of the city. The glimmer of hope in this shitty little bar. The beat picks up and she quickens her pace, strutting down the stage like she owned the world.

Flash and I reach for a single and another cigarette.

I reach out to her but not to touch, like my fingers will burn from the fires that cross her body. The music thumps a low pounding bass, rattling my bones, my chest touching the rail. Alyssa sees me with the single folded in half and a cigarette in my mouth. She grinds her hips, warm to the touch, and I push the single through the lace. She reaches back and grabs a lighter from someone anonymous, clicking the flint wheel, where the spark catches and she breathes life to the fire. She lights my cigarette, fringes of her dark hair falling over her doe-brown eyes, and I breathe in. I breathe in everything and nothing all at once. She moves in time to my pulse, my rapid breath. I close my eyes and we're connected. She dances perfectly to my music.

On this nameless night in the valley, in another nameless club in a nameless alley, my imperfect music plays for my imperfect muse.

Little Red Car

2008-10-04T17:13:00.000-07:00

Little Red Car

Imagine this kid, about five years old, looking at a rusting play car on top of a dilapidated aluminum roof.

Light hits the crumbling red paint, once so bright, it screamed needed. The little toy headlights popped out of their sockets and the kid remembers the pedals inside that he used to push to make the car go.

In his own little speedway, he ran down the linoleum track floor, missing the potted plant and almost hitting the television with a man inside, holding a microphone and talking to people. Smells of beef stew crisped in the humid tropical heat, the crank gears of his little car strained through its paces and he drove along side his dog that nipped at his arm every so often.

He looks at a window and sees an old friend, old as any friend would be at five, and he waves. The friend waves back and meets him by the coconut tree, where a few other kids are playing marbles. His friend's face, weathered and dry, a blank slate where a crust of snot met with his upper lip. They both look at the rusting play car on top of a dilapidated aluminum roof.

The kid says, why?

It's broken, his friend says. He scratches himself and looks at the other kids.

The kid remembers when his mom gave the little car away. He protested, protested as any kid would at five, for losing something he cared about and never really getting an explanation why. His mom said, your friend needs it more than you do. The kid was supposed to accept that as a reasonable answer. He didn't say another word.

He goes to play with the other kids knowing that nobody else feels the same way about the car as he does, not even his first friend.

Imagine this kid, about five years old, looking at old photographs that smelled of dried glue.

Yellowing pages surround frozen smiles and looking back at him is a man he recognizes when he looks in the mirror. The man is riding a motorcycle, posing for the camera, and he hears the man's voice talking from a cassette tape player. A baby cries and the man coos. These voices, ghosts from years past, replaying over and over as he looks at the photographs. Memories slowly fading in the kid's ears and the tape deteriorating from age but he remembers the man's laugh, seared in his mind each time his mom reminds him that the man loved him to the end of his life.

A chant, a mantra, she says this over and over. For herself more than for the kid.

He wonders, like any kid would at five, the reason for losing someone and him never really getting an explanation why.

Somewhere, he is needed more than we do here, his mom said. The kid was supposed to accept that as a reasonable answer.

So the kid goes out of the house and sees the rusting play car on top of a dilapidated aluminum roof again. The bumper falls off at the slight hint of a stiff breeze. Moving, changing, crumbling. He opens the front gate and steps out into the balmy afternoon, his slippers slapping concrete as he gathers speed. He runs down the concrete speedway, missing the vagrants at the corner store and almost hitting a stack of soda bottles where a stout man is shifting crates, side by side. His chest burns but he keeps moving and his dog nips at his legs every so often.

The roar of the wind rushes past his ears, loud enough to drown reasonable answers that never made any sense.

Longevity

2008-08-31T21:26:00.000-07:00

Longevity

In the back of my mind, when my grandmother dies, my mother will not tell me.

My suspicions are strong that if she is not dead yet, she will be. She's 82 and ten years ago, a morbid thought that I could smell death around her kept replaying in my mind. Her scent, an old, moldy scent reminiscent of her bags of yarn for crafts, filled me even though it was like yesterday when that same scent kept me free from monsters and I slept soundly through the night. That same scent of old paperback books she had stowed in a bookcase nailed at the foot of her bed that strained from the weight of millions of words.

I could have had the smell of fresh baked cookies or fried plantains as memory of her but what I recall when I snap my fingers is that one instance when I looked at her bare arm and saw a bluish-gray pyramid. It was encircled by writing that could have been legible had time not ravaged her skin. The top of the pyramid had tools. I had no idea what it meant. When I asked her what that was, she replied with a shrug, “it's nothing.”

And that was that.

I snap my fingers again and I see her falling. She was putting ironed clothes into my overnight bag, the one I took home from university. She stepped aside to go to her room, her task complete, and her foot got tangled with the strap. She tripped and fell on her side. I remember being horrified because she was already so fragile then, like a piece of ceramic slipping from a trembling hand. I ran to her and held her up, she said she was fine and I got angry that I told her, in a loud voice, to be careful.

Be careful not to scare me like that again because I don't want to lose you, was what I meant.

Monsters from under my bed ravaged my four-year old dreams. In the middle of the night, I'd run from my bed into her room, through the darkness because the monsters couldn't see, and I'd jump onto her bed and cover myself with her sheets. She'd wake up with a sigh and fluff the pillow under my head. I would tell her one word: monsters.

I had to say nothing more.

When I was a sophomore in high school, for a journalism class, I had a chance to know more about this woman who raised me. We had to do a feature story. I found out that before I was born, she had a life and that her life was hard. Having lived through a war and giving birth to almost ten children, the soft lines of her spanish lineage became rough. Her skin was brown from toiling in a farm, baked under the sun. Her arms weathered from carrying my mother and her siblings. Her lines more pronounced by her mouth, laugh lines they're called, survive and prove that there's life beyond sorrow.

I never told her what the topic of our assignment was. We were told to interview our personal hero.

On the phone, thousands of miles and years away, my mother cried. She had an argument with grandmother and as is typical when grandmother's upset, she packed her belongings and moved out of the house, away from my mother, off to some farm with one of her other children.

Some silly misunderstanding. The strain of being an aging widow, raising her mother who was getting more and more difficult to live with, caught up with my mother and painful words were uttered. Not the first time, I know, but every time I hear them fighting, I react the same way as though I hear them fighting for the first time.

The little boy in me cried for the women in my life.

I didn't need to remind my mother that grandmother was getting older. She needed to be patient with her and we don't know how much longer she'll be with us. She said that I didn't need to tell her. I only said those words to remind myself.

In my own despicable way, when the time comes and she does move on, my twisted little mind is telling me that mother won't tell me. She'll do it not because of malice but because she knows I'm not ready. I've been steadying myself for years, the scent of death familiar, but she knows that when the inevitable comes, the smell of fresh baked cookies and fried plantains will overcome the stench of anticipated death. The image of her faded tattoo will flare like a fresh wound and then I'll know what it is for.

It is to keep her alive if only in my memory.

Haiku

2008-07-25T00:17:00.000-07:00

Haiku

No missed calls. No text messages.

I look at my phone and ask myself, What the hell are you expecting?

I dial voicemail and the automated voice says, “You have one skipped message.” Mae's week-old voice in the ether plays.

Guilt comes flooding back as I hear it again, from that afternoon when I told her it was over. She was expecting to see me then, a couple of days after she told me to think things through. I called her when I got in from work. I couldn't concentrate and spent most of the day rehearsing lines, to make it easier for both of us.

I always have trouble vocalizing emotions because they're not meant to be heard.

I had my heart broken many times so when I told her it was over and she cried, I sat on my bed as my own tears fell in time with hers. I said it was over because it wasn't working out. She said I never gave it a chance. I said I hated to be in this position because I didn't feel as strongly about us as she did. She said I should imagine being her.

I couldn't.

I left the house and went to the gym to burn off the bitter feeling in my gut. I made the decision to end it because I made a haiku out of a drunken contest and Mae never crossed my mind. Someone else was busy occupying it.

Marilyn Monroe is a pink shot like creamy pepto-bismol. Pacific Sunrise is made of butterscotch schnapps and caramel with a little cherry at the bottom of the glass.

I was nursing a Long Island Iced Tea when the bartender handed us the shots. We were celebrating at our favorite café because G got a significant salary raise and we just found a new place to move into. M was dating someone new and I had Mae so everything was going as well as it should be. It seemed as though whatever rut we were stuck in for the past two years was lifting and in G's words, “it's all happening”.

M dug a hand in her bag and fished out a red moleskin notebook. “It's been a while since I wrote in this,” she said. Her little red book of haiku. She's been pestering me to make a haiku for some time now, to contribute, and every time she asked, I'd just say, “I don't do haiku.”

She read a passage, a slice of time when she was still dating Dan on the futon.

“He penetrated...” she said and I covered my ears. I sipped my alcohol because I didn't want to hear it. She pulled my hands away and said, “...my heart! And never let go.”

I nodded, slightly relieved. I looked at the bartender washing glasses and I asked M for a pen. I thought I could do better. My competitive streak was coming out.

“If you have a receipt or something, hand it over,” I said.

I counted words while my left hand scribbled on the back of a Barnes and Noble receipt. M tried to sneak peeks but I kept it to myself. Both hands up in the air as I wrote, the bartender looked every so often, maybe even wondered if I was scribbling my number and address for someone to give. In two minutes, I handed it back.

A three-tiered haiku with no help from Mae. My inspiration came from somewhere else. M snatched the receipt and hit me on the shoulder. “Less than three minutes and drunk. Fuck you,” she said. “It's not good but it's not that bad.”

She took her little red book of haiku and added my contribution.

I came back from the gym and my phone read ten missed calls, two text messages, and a voicemail. All of them from Mae.

The voicemail left me feeling punched in the chest. Her voice in the ether played.

Hey, it's me. It's 8:15 and you said you were going to pick me up at 9:00. This is so stupid of me but I do want to see you. Even though you probably won't, I'll get ready if you decide to pick me up. I don't know why I'm like this but I've never felt so strongly about someone so quickly as I do with you. I just wish you'd come and reconsider. It figures, you're not picking up your phone. I'm sorry.

I called her and told her I was at the gym when she called and that she's not being stupid. I was. I apologized for everything but I just couldn't force my feelings.

“It shouldn't be this hard, you know?” I said.

“It doesn't have to be.”

“But it is.”

We were both silent for a minute, listening to each other's breathing. Feeling.

“Say something, Mae.”

“You shouldn't have asked me out again,” she said, which meant You shouldn't have led me on.

“I gave it a chance, Mae. I'm sorry,” I said.

Silence.

“I'll be fine,” she said. Then hung up.

I step into the bus to take me home and my phone chirps a text message from Mae.

I figured out that movie I told you about that I wanted to see in two weeks. Want to join me?

I call her and say, “I want to but I don't know if that's a good idea right now.”

“It is. This is what I need," she says.

“I don't think I can offer you anything but friendship and I don't want to unintentionally lead you on.” Again.

“I know. So, do you want to go?”

“Sure,” I say.

The bus lurches forward and I think we'll be fine.

Silent

2008-07-16T23:22:00.000-07:00

Silent

I've been up for over an hour when I got the text message but I hesitated calling.

From Mae, it read:

When you wake up, give me a call :)

There's a reheated skillet dinner from Norms the night before on my plate and a glass of cold milk next to it. The message made me anxious. A hearty breakfast would calm me down. Having recently shun television, I had nothing but my thoughts to occupy me as I ate.

In a couple of hours, I'd pick Mae up for our first “daylight” date because there's nothing like sunlight to put a spotlight on things.

I can't recall all the times I've staggered out of a friend's house the night after. My hair sticky, my breath disgusting, and my clothes soiled, bright sunlight seemed to magnify the sloshing sound of blood rushing to my pounding brain. The illusions of the night before when we were still classy burned off like mist in the morning and I've thereby associated sunlight with the truth.

When I looked at my phone, it seemed as though it radiated solar energy.

I finished off the last of my bacon and eggs and scanned her name in the phone's recent calls list.

“Hey what's up?” she said.

“Just woke up. What's going on?”

“Just a slight change in plans. Do you mind if we hang out in Koreatown today?”

“Koreatown?” I said. “Are you staying at a friend's house?”

“Um, yeah. You were right. I did party last night and we got here at three in the morning,” she said laughing.

“Oh? You know, we can meet on Wednesday night instead. I want you to sleep in, you barely had any.”

“Really?” she said disappointed. “But I'm ok, I want to see you.”

“You sound sleepy,” I said. I heard her stifle a yawn. “I think it's better if we did this on Wednesday.”

“Oh,” she said, “but just for the record, I wanted to see you and you decided to cancel on me.”

“I cancelled so you can sleep,” I said, annoyed.

Besides, I didn't want to go to Koreatown that Sunday morning. I wanted us to go to the beach, where there was lots of sunshine.

Fuck, if everything's gonna be exposed, might as well go all in.

“I really do want to see you,” she said, “but I guess I'll talk to you later.”

She hung up.

I plopped on the couch and stared at the wall. M was having a bowl of cereal. Without breaking breath, she said, “There are many excuses not to. If you wanted to, you'd go.”

“Fuck,” I said to the wall. I hate it when she's right.

Mae was standing in front of the building wearing a green strapless beach dress.

I instantly felt bad when she said she bought it just a few minutes ago because her overnight clothes weren't exactly “beach ready”. I told her so and she said that she's been eyeing the dress for some time and now, she had an excuse to get it.

“It's what girls do,” she said. “Don't feel bad”

“Yet,” I said under my breath.

The waiter was a surly man in a suit too warm for the beach-side Third Street Promenade.

We sat inside a bistro where we could see an oxymoronic violinist hawking his CD of contemporary punk classics. The bistro's ceiling was full of synthetic vines, made to look like we were sitting outside, complete with Spanish-inspired crumbling masonry and the necessary twittering bird-like monstrosity trapped in the polycarbonate branches.

“He's good,” Mae said. “I actually bought his CD.” She bit into her chicken caesar salad while I forked my blackened mahi-mahi.

“So,” I said, toying with the pineapple salsa, “it may be too early but... how do you feel about me?”

She swallowed. Hard.

“I like you,” she said.

“I like hanging out with you,” I said.

We both fell silent.

“You probably noticed that we don't have a lot in common,” I said.

“So?”

“You're just scared,” she said. She drew stars on the sand. We were looking at sailboats lolling up and down on choppy waves. I felt my nose burning under the sun.

“You're probably right,” I said. “I do like being around you but is that really enough?”

“That's how I've always been,” she said. “Most of my boyfriends are the quiet intellectual types. We rarely had anything in common.”

“That's not how I am. I need to have someone I share common interests with. I'm at a different point in my life now,” I said. “You just turned twenty-two and I'm looking for someone I'll spend the rest of my life with. I'll be twenty-eight in a few months.”

I drew a “28” on the sand, maybe to reinforce the number or maybe to find a temporary ally aground, I don't know.

“You're just scared,” she said again.

I wrapped my arms around her and asked, “what now?”

The sand stopped moving.

I dropped her off at her apartment.

She had both arms around me and she was breathing into my chest. I cup her face in my hands and asked if I could kiss her.

I did.

She mumbled into my chest that I was the first guy to ask her if I could kiss her. She said that was nice. She hugged me tighter and her softness was filling me. Her fingers traced my jaw and she picked at my stubble. Her touch was starting to intoxicate me.

“I don't know what to do,” I said.

She thought for a while and she pushed off.

“We're just getting too emotional,” she said. She kissed me again.

“The best thing to do,” she said as her arm slid around my torso, stroking my back, “is for you to go home, think about it and we'll talk.”

She looked down. She felt something hard between us.

“Yeah,” I said slightly embarrassed. “I have to go.”

“I don't want you to go,” she said and held my hands.

“I have to,” I said.

On the drive home, I tried to sort out exactly how I felt. My brain was telling me one thing. My dick was telling me another.

The part of me that really mattered, my heart, was disappointingly indifferent.

Silent.

God Complex

2008-07-05T12:58:00.000-07:00

God Complex

Hard to imagine but twice I was Jesus Christ at different stages of his life.

I wore swaddling clothes the first time I did it in the fourth grade. The new kid in school and the principal decided to cast me in his little musical as the gangly preteen counterpart of the Son of Man. The second time I was a senior and wore a modest robe with sequins because the way the spotlight fell on them cast a spell that was, to borrow his word, “heavenly”. Both performances were six years apart and they ran exactly the same way.

Begin scene.

The world was in turmoil.

Evil was surrounding the lives of people who, conveniently enough, were grouped all over the stage according to their vices. The drug dealers and addicts front stage left. Whores front and center. Wife beaters front stage right. Bad school children behind the addicts, presumably to take their place. Soldiers killing civilians right behind the whores, where they usually are during R&R. False idol worshippers and rich greedy bastards behind the wife beaters.

Curiously missing were the evil school teachers who gave algebra exams at 4 on Friday afternoons.

Lights would dim, a soft plinking sound as the music would start playing a song that literally translated to “Who is noble? Who is really crazy?” and on cue, an actress dressed as a crazy bum would arrive stage left and perform a pseudo-dance all around the characters as if in a trance. Whoever her grimy hand touched would begin to move, each one exemplifying their given vice.

The druggies would snort, puff, or transact. The whores would gyrate and hump anything that moved. Everybody else would live out their vices forever and ever, amen. The crazy bum, losing hope in humanity, would fall in a heap next to the whores, who would then proceed to rob her of her very little belongings.

The audience, comprised of very young, very impressionable school children, would be heart broken at this point if they ever stopped long enough from pointing at a whore's exposed butt crack. There would be parents in the audience who would be wiping away tears but nodding nonetheless as if to say, “life is shit, it happens exactly like this”.

While the crazy bum would be crying on stage, the lights would fade and a spotlight would focus on rear stage right exit.

Dressed in swaddling clothes or a modest sequined robe, “Jesus formerly known as me” would come out right under the light, just in time for the music to swell. I remember there's a correct way to hold up my right hand, like making a peace sign but not as rigid. My left hand was busy holding the world. Our principal's direction screaming in my head to walk very very slowly because the weight of mankind's sins was a burden to my meek shoulders.

I would walk in a sort of circuitous random way. Healing.

Just when you thought I was going to the rich greedy bastards first, I go to the bad school children and lay my non-world holding hand on them and they would follow. I'd make a left but I'd ignore, for now, the junkies clawing at my robe or bare leg and head straight for the killing soldiers. They'd drop their weapons and follow me as well.

“The pattern is random,” our principal would say during rehearsal. The audience would have goose bumps by now but nodding nonetheless as if to say, “life is random, it happens exactly like this.”

The only thing constant about the whole play is that the crazy bum would be the last life I would save, cradling her in my arms, while a retinue of believers would hold one another partly in consolation, mostly because their souls were promised everlasting salvation.

End scene.

“She is the noble one, spared by the innocence of craziness” would be our moral lesson. That and “Jesus Saves” which is also quite catchy.

The establishment is a private catholic school so I suppose you can say it's an honor to take on the role both times, which, as far as I know has never been replicated since. Once I got past the taunts that I still wore diapers in the fourth grade, the play did wonders for my social life. If we ever had a school mascot, I have a sinking feeling that I was it. Our principal could have chosen realism by adding gore but I can't imagine any school wanting a bloody mascot nailed to the cross.

All good things come to an end though, as we say. The novelty faded when in high school, a classmate was possessed by a demon and I was powerless to stop it.

AUDIO

Tip

2008-06-29T21:40:00.000-07:00

Tip

Ask any guy what the scariest part is when asking a girl out and he'll tell you it's the opening line.

A lot of it is hit or miss. Magazines will enumerate the best and worst pickup lines as if there's a fool-proof method to dating. If your boy's been on the block, he would have run the entire gamut but one thing he'll tell you is that there's not one line that can deliver all the time. Not even the venerable”Hi” cuts it.

It's so much easier for guys when the girls make the effort to initiate the dating game. Personally, I appreciate it so much more, especially when I'm having lunch at my favorite restaurant, when the bill comes with a name and a phone number scribbled at the top because it doesn't happen often.

Call it a habit but after we bike the stretch from Santa Monica to Venice beach, we have a little breather in a quaint greek restaurant at the end of the trail. The rustic wooden boards creak when you enter, so do the saloon-type swinging doors next to the unisex bathroom. At the corner, completely unassuming, is a television set hoisted on an articulating arm, its rabbit ears tuned to a random soccer game. Tables are usually filled with customers, more so on the patio, right near the sidewalk of busy Washington Avenue. The wait staff, dressed in black even on a hot spring day, carry loaded trays of kebabs and wraps, side orders of salad or french fries.

We scan the menu for a minute though we usually know what we want by the time we get them. We sound off our order to Mae, our usual server, and we start feasting on pita with a concoction of olive oil and what seems like black sand that tastes nothing like how it looks. In all our times eating there,I never thought that Mae was the least bit interested. Imagine my surprise when coming back from the bathroom, M casually mentions that Mae found me “cute”.

She's shuffling around with her kebabs and wraps, side orders of salad or french fries, and I take a moment to really look at her. She's moving with a sense of refinement and her lips are curved in a constant smile, genuine because no one can fake a smile for as long as she's doing it. Her tanned skin is contrasted against the straps of her black tank.

I would have asked her out even without the little note on our tab. G looks at the number and jokes, “I guess we tip really well.”

Cut to the night of the first date and I swear Dane Cook is looking right at me as he's performing his bit.

It's College humor night at the Hollywood Improv. Cook shows up unannounced and performs his skit, asking the crowd what the secret is to a successful relationship. No one raises a hand. I look at Mae sipping water from a bottle and I shrug my shoulders. We had this conversation at the dinner table earlier. We came to the conclusion that when it comes to relationships, no one really knows what to do.

She was laughing a lot at the comic that followed who used to work at the “Shitcake Factory”. It's probably an inside joke that all of us outside the service industry can't completely relate to.

Cut to the night of the second date and we're having dinner at a Korean BBQ joint on 6th.

All the signs are flashing “you have nothing in common”. This isn't just because she's Mongolian and I've been resisting the urge to ask if BBQ is their “official” food but because of all the cultural nuances that came with that, which I'm completely ignorant of. If she asked me right there to point out Mongolia on a map, I'd point my finger north of China.

Anywhere north of China.

When I'd open a topic about books and authors, I'd get a blank stare and a curt, “I should start reading books.” When I'd ask her what her favorite music is she'd say “Reggaeton” and I'm constantly reminded by nagging voices that she's only 22, the youngest I've dated at any one time. She even admitted that she's doing everything against what a girl should be doing on a date. When I asked her what that was, she said that she was eating way too much.

Nonetheless, I exerted a little effort and took her home to watch The Notebook on DVD but not before stopping by the local Vons to buy a pint of ice cream to make the night a little more memorable. Watching Noah and Allie relive their love story through the pages of a handwritten memoir, she cried at the right moments, she cried even at the wrong ones. She cried all throughout the film and after the credits started rolling, she said in a raspy voice, “that was so beautiful.” I just smiled and told her that I was glad she liked the film. Seeing her vulnerable only on our second date showed a kind of honesty I can't show myself.

We really have nothing in common but right now, it's not necessarily a bad thing.

AUDIO

The Accidental Date

2008-06-11T19:01:00.000-07:00

The Accidental Date

I order a mojito from the bar and Gaby tells me she wants a screwdriver.

The bartender mixes her drink in a small glass and passes it over. He starts on the mojito, breaking out the shaker and pouring a batch of colorless alcohol while his partner passes him a glass of mint leaves. “Good thing you ordered this while we're still slow,” he says with a smile. I didn't think making a mojito is complicated but there he is, doing his machinations with the shaker, transplanting the colorless liquid from one glass to the other and the music is starting to pick up but not the crowd.

We sit down on a leather couch in front of frosted glass mini tables lit by fluorescent bulbs from the inside. I take a sip of the mojito and admire Gaby's flawless face illuminated from below. How this date came to be was a jumbled mess that began the night before when we dropped her and her sister Vicki back to their apartment after watching the latest Narnia movie.

“Thank you,” she said. Vicki was coming round the trunk of the car and I casually remarked that we would pick them up the following night to take them sight-seeing. Gaby is visiting from Wisconsin, originally from Venezuela, and is only going to be in the city for a few days. The following day, G sent me a text message:

Vicki said her sis likes you too hahahhaha.. I heard you guys are going out tonight.

I immediately called G and asked her what the shit was going on. We came to the conclusion that it was all a misunderstanding but G said for me to go ahead and run with it. She found it hilarious that I got a date without actually asking for it and I didn't mind at all. The moment Vicki showed me pictures of her family, I found Gaby attractive.

Vicki sent Gaby a picture of me while she was still in Wisconsin via instant messaging and all of a sudden, we just heard Vicki say that Gaby was flying the following week. I would like to think that she did this when she saw my picture but I know she's flying to see how her sister is doing.

And probably how I'm doing too.

The whole scenario with the accidental date would have been perfect if not for one minor hiccup. Gaby has a boyfriend back in Wisconsin. And as I sit next to her on that couch and people start to file in, I pretend that he doesn't exist. We start to tune everything out and everyone else in the bar blurs.

That Madonna song about saving the world in a few short minutes starts to play and I gesture that we should dance. She hesitates, I catch her off-guard but she indulges after I flash my lopsided smile. Everyone at the bar is looking at her. Her smile could power a small city for weeks and I tell her that she should teach me how to dance the salsa.

“But it's not the right song,” she says.

“We can pretend,” I say and then guide her hands to my waist where she says I should move from.

“Even guys sway when they dance the salsa,” she says when she feels how I tensed under her touch.

Slowly, we move from side to side and I'm mindful to not step on her delicate toes. My hands on her hips, she guides my waist and we move to our own rhythm. I follow her lead and she takes my hands in hers. She teaches me how to twirl. Her hair brushes my face and I smell lilacs.

A guy sitting in front of us reaches out a hand to shake, tells me that it was a good twirl. I thank him and lead Gaby back to our couch. I close my tab and we leave the crowded bar, not noticing how it filled up.

I realize as I'm driving her back to my apartment where she and Vicki will be staying for the night that I'm setting myself up for disappointment again.

I don't care.

In the least, I learned how to dance a little bit of salsa to the beating of my hoping heart. It's good to feel it again after such a long time doubting if I still had one.

Acting Human

2008-06-06T19:12:00.000-07:00

Acting Human

“You're a great actor, my friend,” M said while we sped on the freeway, me behind the wheel.

Our lips were still slick from the party we were from, a random acquaintance none of us knew well enough to care but just enough to be invited. I asked her if I did alright that night and she knew what I meant. Her assessment came quick, she's been observing how I mingled. She dropped reminders before we left the house to curb my misantrophy. I was a specimen she often watched instead of the television because I was more entertaining according to her.

What it is, I imagine, is her fascination that I can stop my indifference on a dime. A switch from apathetic to personable in microseconds. She considers this a rare skill. It probably is because not everyone had to go on pretending that their life is alright every time.

You can say that I had a lot of practice.

When I was a boy, I mirrored how older boys moved because I had no male influence to speak of. I got tired of the teasing when my mannerisms mimicked my mother's and I've been called names that meant nothing to me at age four. I found out they were bad when my mother asked me if I got upset when other kids teased.

I didn't know I was supposed to be, so I got upset just to make her feel like I cared.

Trial and error, there were times when I exaggerated mimicking to the point where I almost got into fights. I learned to pick the subtleties of how kids interacted and replayed lessons until I got accepted into groups. It didn't take long for me to be the one instigating fights between smaller kids. I'd be taunting them to flick each others earlobes until it escalated to full blown fist fights. I'd stand back to admire my handiwork and got respect from the older ones.

You'd think these stupid rules ended where the swing sets did but they don't. To fit in, you have to mimic conformity. Give the illusion that you're part of the whole scheme. The illusion that you know what you are doing because people around you, believe it or not, are just as lost as you are and they cling to confidence. You get confident when you know you can handle the person in front of you. You can handle the person in front of you when you have enough confidence.

At some point, you learn how to bluff and bluff well.

In the office, I'm the delegated greeter. Any important visitor that needed to be escorted from the airport, I was assigned. This meant long moments of awkward silences between two people who have none in common. I evolved a distinct defense mechanism to tense situations. No matter who you are, I'd try to make myself feel better by asking questions, maintaining eye contact, picking up cues, making remarks, mirroring your gestures until I'd feel comfortable enough to shut up and let you do the talking.

If there's one thing I learned, once coaxed, everybody wants to talk about themselves.

At the party, I moved from one person to the other. Some of the other guests I already met and others were just waiting for introductions. Bulleted lists flashed in my mind. Tips on reading body language. Cues to not appear threatening. Points on how to smile. How to make small talk. Open dialogue. Engage. In other words, all the social norms that would otherwise fly over my head because my natural instincts told me to just shut up and eat the shrimp.

M said I did well that night because I followed her advise. Before we left, she said, “Don't be yourself. Mingle.”

Funny how she had to remind me on how to be human.

Condoms and Childhood Memories

2008-05-26T02:57:00.000-07:00

Condoms and Childhood Memories

Before I left home, my mother asked me to forgive her.

This was just after college and I was about to board a plane headed for Los Angeles. She will not see me for a few years. I didn't ask what she meant but I just said yes. I told her I forgave her.

My father wasn't there because he passed away at a young age and was never really anyone in my life except the man who worked hard enough to make sure his family had a check every month from the US government. He lived in pictures my mother collected and I knew him from snapshots taken by strangers, some of whom I'd meet to piece together the father I didn't have.

I'd see him when I look in mirrors. He lives on because we look so much alike.

“He can never deny that he is his son,” my mother often said, not that he could say anything contrary even if he wanted to. She had a defensive yet jovial sentiment when she pointed out this fact, not that anyone is questioning my legitimacy in the first place. But if you were raising a biracial child in a city known for its cheap whores, it never hurt to be sure that people knew what was what .

Every month or so, there would be a ship berthing at our little port in the tropics. Full of sailors on leave, the night would be filled with lights and laughter. It was common to see staggering Americans with their arms around their disposable dates managing the concrete steps on the hillside of our barrio. At two in the morning, friends and I would still be awake, trying to guess which one would fall down from being too drunk. Whoever won got to blow up the used condoms outside our neighbors' doors like balloons the next day.

Whoever lost got to wash them first.

You'd probably wonder why we were still awake in the first place when all you need to realize is that our houses were close to one another and nothing can make whores howl with pleasure more than a fistful of dollars for hardly any work. They only had to lie down and there was food on the plate the next day. We'd hear her muffled screams through the concrete wall.

Loudly because she must be craving something expensive for breakfast.

For the record, my mother isn't a whore. She worked in a bank where she met my father while he was opening an account. He fell madly in love the moment he saw her. Flowers were sent every day much to her chagrin and it would have been quaint if not for the fact that interracial marriages were still considered taboo.

My mother wasn't really one for social norms and they got married soon after.

Three months into my life, he died from liver failure. Cirrhosis from alcoholism and post-traumatic stress disorder. A Vietnam vet, he nursed the bottle more than he did me. I held a grudge so I was caught by surprise when she was the one asking for forgiveness; not that my father could ask for it anyway even if he wanted to. It could be that she knew I wanted a better life. But all things considered, she did a damn fine job of keeping me alive.

Countless nights I woke up to my own piss and vomit and she'd nurse me to health. Countless days I'd get myself in accidents potentially lethal and she'd take me to the hospital for head stitches and smelling salts. Countless hours she made sure I brushed my teeth and that my homework was done. Countless gallons of blood, sweat, and tears all throughout everything. And she did this all on her own.

If her son was a reflection of who she is as a mother, on the outside she knew she succeeded.

My mother asked me to forgive her just as I was leaving her behind because despite everything that she has done, I was leaving home with painful and rough childhood memories. I wanted to tell her that it didn't matter because she taught me well enough to get by. If there was anyone who should have been asking forgiveness, it should have been me for setting her up to standards so high that no one can meet. I don't blame her for anything at all.

When I kissed her goodbye, I told her I love her. She never hears that as often as she deserves.

Dare

2008-05-20T20:00:00.000-07:00

Dare

The moment my lips touched Alison's, I was glad I wasn't grinning.

But I did pull away with a stupid smile on my face. It must have been the pot or it could have been the eight bottles of beer I had. In any case, I was happy that G picked 5 from the deck of cards. Of all the drinking games we played, I love Kings the most.

Friday night and we realized we were broke. Going out almost every night for the past three weeks put a dent in our immeasurable wealth. It was my epiphany to live our lives as best as we possibly can but I also blame my recent health scare for pushing us into poverty.

When the weekend was rolling in and we realized we had no means, we decided not to head out but to stay in with some friends who brought beer and then some. Alison was one of those friends. She brought two others: Shawn, a drummer we met the week before at a bar, and Joe, a clueless thirty-something.

By the time they arrived, I was already nursing a beer and my eyes were red from smoking. I had a delicious buzz going and Joe caught onto the scent of pot that filled the living room. He stepped inside the bathroom and when he came out said that someone was smoking “good shit” in there.

“It was me,” I said.

“Oh, yeah. I can tell. The moment we stepped in, I smelled it right away and when I saw your eyes, I thought 'either this guy is smoking or he's on his fifth bottle.'”

He had no game but his powers of observation and deduction were impeccable.

“Is it okay if I smoked?” he said.

“Oh, absolutely.”

I tried to get up to pass him a hit but I couldn't. He took something from his pocket and unrolled a Ziploc bag with some hash and a pipe.

“I wasn't sure if you guys were cool or not.”

I remember looking at him like that was the stupidest thing I've ever heard.

The girls were prepping the beer and Alison got to decide what drinking game to play. She settled on Kings, modified to suit our needs. She explained how the game went but I couldn't help but stare. I caught bits and pieces of the rules, the holes I filled by asking when it was my turn to pick. “What is this card for again?” I'd ask. Then ask again when I pick the same card right after the other.

She was very distracting.

Playing cards were laid around a beer mug and she explained that numbers corresponded to certain “events”.

A: Make a rule
2: Fuck you (player picks someone to drink)
3: Fuck me (player drinks)
4: Truth
5: Dare
6: Dicks (guys drink)
7: Categories (name as many as you can in a given category like brand of shirts)
8: Pick a mate (player picks someone to drink with)
9: “Never have I ever...” (If you did, you drink)
10: Rhymes (which made no fucking sense)
J: Go back (person before your turn drinks)
Q: Queens (girls drink)
K: Pour some in the middle beer mug and whoever picks the last king drinks all the beer in it.

Everytime I picked 2 and 8 (hell, even 3), I chose Alison. It couldn't have been more obvious, especially when she asked, “where's a cool place to hang out in?” and I answered in all innocence, “aside from my room?”

The moment came when G picked 5. I knew she was getting back at me for all the truth questions I've been asking Viki, one of those sexually-confused types who had a thing with G but also wanted to do some evil things to me. I wouldn't cross her but Alison without her boyfriend was fair game.

I realized she was throwing me a bone when G dared me to kiss Alison and she said, “come here”. A pity kiss to get it over with but it was a bone I gladly chewed on. I went up to her and leaned it. My eyes were slightly open to see how she was reacting and I kissed her lips with a smile on mine. I pulled away from her still wearing that stupid smile and wishing that things were very different between us. I would have loved to hold her in my arms as I kissed her.

While she held me tight in hers too.

So Joe picked 7 and proudly said, “brands of mattress”. Everyone groaned and I asked for the pipe. I said I was too fucking sober despite all the pot and alcohol I had when all I really wanted was to forget that I had a hole in my heart that Alison filled for a few seconds that night.

A hole that was still there the moment I pulled away.

Goals

2008-05-07T22:09:00.000-07:00

Goals

What woke me up from my drunken stupor was the sound of a man talking in the living room by my bedroom door.

A moment to push sleep out and I realize it's not the television but the friend M has been dating for the past few months. G and I've never met this person before and it doesn't seem like she'll be introducing him anytime soon. A good description for the dynamic they have is “carnal”. M still had delusions of “love” and “companionship” but the guy wasn't on the same page.

So she settled for good old fashioned “lust” instead.

Cinco de Mayo is as good a reason as any to drink. M and I met G at this swanky little café called Java Detour that just opened at the corner of Santa Monica and Robertson. G found this place and described it as the perfect little café for her. It certainly trumps my little Starbucks a few blocks down. It was a few steps from the Abbey, a notorious mixed club known for beautiful people. Some of them stumbling, find their way to her cafe.

In the cafe, eye candy is free. So is the Wi-Fi. I can see the allure.

By the time we reached the café, I already had a slight buzz from a bottle of beer I chugged right before I drove. No lunch, coupled with an extraordinarily disgusting Monday and I was ready for my nightcaps. Wrapped in a yellow Forever 21 shopping bag M had in her stash, the empty beer bottle was hidden strategically in the car. I don't remember if it's a felony or a misdemeanor to have an open bottle of alcohol in your car but I took the necessary precaution by downing the whole bottle before putting it away.

The original plan was to go to some authentic Mexican watering hole so that even though we were not the least bit Mexican, we can partake in this historical moment that has long been demoted as the day when everybody is “wasted”, a Mexican word that I'm sure means “fucked-up”. But the Abbey being so seductively close and seeing that we've conquered the monster parking situation in the area, it made a lot of sense to just take a few steps so we can begin celebrating post-haste.

Note that at this point in my life, I am no longer afraid to be grabbed, fondled, and/or jeered by other men. Homophobia loses it's grip when you find out that your two best friends are homosexuals (G and T) and that they are, for lack of a better term, swell. So much so in fact that I decided to keep them despite of our differences. Well, no difference really when you think about it. We all cater to different demographics and ours is the perfect dysfunctional dynamic, disrupted by the occasional sexually-confused male or female who happened to get tangled in our little web of debauchery.

In any case, we went to the Abbey because beer is beer no matter where you go. I bought a round of drinks, two Margaritas and a Mojito for myself, to be followed by a Corona chaser or three. M said that her friend Alison, had she been single, would definitely go for someone like me. This doesn't help me in anyway. This made me even more miserable seeing as how I actually find Alison funny and attractive, a lethal combination. Alison also observed that I had the friend vibe; that talent some men have that make women so comfortable to be around them that they move past “potential lover” to “beer pong partner” in a matter of seconds.

I need to work on being sleazier is what I think she's trying to say.

I made a promise to myself to actually try to enjoy living. This is completely different from who I was a few years ago, an admitted depressive with suppressed suicidal tendencies. As I am also getting older, the idea of finding someone to live with is becoming more and more nagging. There was actually a time, just as Spring was beginning this year, that I saw nothing but couples strolling hand in hand everywhere.

It was disgusting.

But who knew that I was actually a romantic when I had enough to drink?

That night, as Madonna was screaming about saving the world or something neurotic while half-naked men were dancing for dollar bills, I told M to not give up on love. She said that she gave up on it two years ago, when she turned 26, and realized that couples married for eons still got divorced. She became disillusioned about finding that one true person you can spend the rest of your life with. She just wanted to pop babies without the emotional baggage. It was a subject I wasn't willing to explore with her yet.

She was hormonal and it might not end well for me.

I asked her if she knew where her life was going and she said no. I suppose no one really does. Her goal in life at the moment is just to be promiscuous.

Trying desperately to fall back to sleep but wide-awake to the sound of my futon sofa (that I will someday burn) creaking that night, M's well on her way to becoming a slut. And I don't think she can be any happier.

Mango Mahi

2008-04-30T23:17:00.000-07:00

Mango Mahi

A week before, I told them dinner will be on me.

The night we were in the restaurant, I was playing with food, rearranging the mango salsa, and the dramatic unveiling could have gone either way. I made up my mind to tell them even if the doctor said that I had cancer.

They deserve to know.

In the middle of the patio, a pit bonfire was burning. Benches, arranged like those in a park, were ragged with graffiti. If I had to choose a place where I'd tell them I was dying, I would have picked a different restaurant. Maybe one that had chandeliers hanging from rafters or one that had tasteful jazz music piping from hidden speakers. None of this Mariachi bullshit. In other words, not here. But fuck if this place didn't have the best Tres Leches cake I've ever had. I needed to live a little. Between all this and issues at work, I practically deserved to be drenched in the stuff.

Funny that I knew how to tell others I was going to die and why but not the other way around. How do you say to people, I'm going to live? It won't have much of an impact when you've been living for as long as they remember you.

Darker years, I remembered planning. Buy the plastic tarp. Maybe some duct tape to lay it flat on the floor, up the walls. I had the decency to make it as easy to clean as possible. Then living in a studio apartment, a gunshot to the head would have forfeited the security deposit but not if the carpet was clean.

Wrist-slitting was out of the question. This shitty little apartment in the middle of the valley had no place for a bathtub. I felt self-conscious about people finding me slumped naked in the bathroom. I could barely fit in it standing up.

I thought about running my then truck through the 101. Not on. Through.

Careening at 10 miles per hour higher than the posted speed limit of 55, my lawbreaking self would swerve the steering wheel sharply to the right, just as I was passing the Hollywood boulevard off-ramp. It'd be the perfect ending if only I died instantly. The truck was about 16 years old but it cradled me like a rabid mother. Chances were, I would have survived the crash and had to face the excruciating process of “rebuilding” myself. This was totally not what I had in mind and it would have been completely counter-productive.

But those darker years are behind me and playing with the stripped Mahi, I was counting down the moments when I had to tell them the good news.

So I told them the story. I told them my bloody masturbation story just as they were digging into the milky creamy cake. Call it a strategy.

It was the first time I did it, I said, which got raised eyebrows. And god decided to punish me for it.

“Was there a lot of blood?” M asked.

Yes, I said.

This also explained why I just started crying in the middle of watching a television show I don't even remember. For the past three weeks, I've been fondled by three different people and the last one used an instrument. The last one saw a cyst that should not have been there. This morning, I saw my doctor for a diagnosis.

“I knew it was something about your health,” G said. I encouraged them to make bets last week. Whoever got it right, I would give five dollars to. They called me cheap but they made bets anyway. The finished novel, a new girlfriend, health issues.

What I was really looking for was testicular cyst. Nobody got it right.

The doctor said it was nothing to worry about since it was small. I had to remind myself he was talking about the cyst.

“So, it's just... there?” M asked.

Yeah. Just there, I said. I should probably name it if it's going to hang around.

To Ex Number Three and Your Butterfly Tattoo

2008-04-12T21:35:00.000-07:00

To Ex Number Three and Your Butterfly Tattoo

You held me on the bus going home and told me everyone was looking at you.

No hint of pride in your voice, a slight tremble over the roar of everything else. I told you not to worry and asked you if you remembered how we met.

“It was on a bus to a writing convention,” you said. “You caught me with your odd choice of words.”

Hot as a rice cooker in here, I remembered saying. You laughed and said yes, it really was.

You didn't know it then but I planted a seed in your head the moment we met. A little kernel that popped and all of a sudden, I was irresistible to you.

Or something like that, I'm sure.

I took you to the middle of a football field and you said a butterfly was tattooed on your back. You wore a crisp, white blouse and under it, I traced delicate lines of a butterfly taking flight. I remember your warmth and how soft your skin was when I kissed it. It was spring then.

It's spring now and I remember you again.

You mailed me letters. We seldom saw each other and almost everyday, I received a colorful envelope with sticker hearts right next to my name written in your distinctive script. I read the letters inside, a litany of how your day was and how you wished we spent more time together. We were both seniors in high school from different schools and we both had big expectations to fill.

There's this one night, I'll confess, when I read one of your letters while Ex Number Two was singing at her father's political campaign down our road.

That's the closest I would ever get to a threesome.

I took you to the beach and we let the waves play with our toes. The cold air pushed us closer together and I held you in my arms. I told you I had a surprise for you. I held out my hand and gave you a box of sand.

The truth is in this box, I said. Open it and see how I feel.

You were skeptical. You had sense to not believe all the bullshit that came out of my mouth yet you decided to humor me anyway. You opened the box and saw grains of colored sand inside a clear plastic cube.

They're magic sand, I said. I told you to turn it over and you did.

As the grains filtered through tiny holes in the cube's false bottom, the rest formed the words, “I Love You”.

I should have bought the one that said “I'm Sorry” instead.

You held me on the bus going home and told me everyone was looking at you. You, with your eyes red from crying, sobbing every time you remembered that I just broke your heart.

I told you they were looking at me because I had the guilty face of a selfish man. I gave you reasons you didn't deserve when all the while, I only wanted to be free.

It's spring now and I remember you again.

I'm sorry that I hurt you.

Anomaly

2008-04-05T23:18:00.000-07:00

Anomaly

To describe what I was feeling that morning I got dressed, embarrassment came to mind but not quite.

For the third time in a couple of weeks, I'll be stripped naked in front of people and I'll tell myself again that this is all for my good. Modesty slowly eroded all the times I've been prodded but I'm not completely numb yet. I caught myself thinking that this must be how porn stars felt and the word liberated nagged but I picked helpless instead.

The trek to the hospital Tuesday morning made me guilty like I was ditching class. I notified the office that I'll be off for half the day and gave the ever reliable “personal reasons” when they asked why. I checked myself in and was told to proceed to waiting room 3.

The population of waiting room 3 consisted of two old men, an old woman, a young woman throwing up in a bucket, and one-scared-me. A nurse came in and handed one of the men a container with the image of a banana on the label. It would have been a smoothie if not for the name which had SULFIDE written in bold letters. He was instructed to drink all of it. The nurse poured the first cup as a gesture of good faith. She had to because it's hard to come by in a place like this.

One by one the patients in waiting room 3 were called to be scanned, radiated, examined and photographed. A short older man with a clipboard knocked on the door and called my name. I followed him to the next room that was dimly lit and had several beds next to sophisticated medical equipment. The ceiling had rail-suspended curtains that could be drawn to separate the beds but you could still hear the conversation the next bed over. Words like prostate cancer, chemotherapy, and diagnosis were thrown around and I tried my best not to catch any of them.

Denial came to mind but I picked optimism instead.

I read about a patient who also had testicular pain. The doctor told him he probably had an infection and prescribed antibiotics to clear it up. The patient noticed a few months later that one testicle was becoming smaller than the other and when he came in for a sonogram, they found that the smaller one died from a torsion and it had to be removed.

That anecdote kept me up at night.

I lay on the bed and the operator poured a thick gel on me which warmed on contact. I wanted to say that it felt like it was burning but I savored the feeling, scared that I may lose it later on. The operator ran a probe over my skin and the moment he turned the sonogram on, I heard the synchronized heartbeats of my unborn children.

I expected to hear nothing.

It was a body part far from the heart and yet there was a pulse, a steady rhythmic thumping loud enough to pervade the clinical silence of the room. I asked him if he could see me from the inside and he said yes. I tried to shift my body to peek at the screen but he gestured for me to keep still.

I really wanted to see inside me because meditation didn't work.

He was quiet the whole time except when he asked when I last saw my doctor. A week ago, I said. He was quiet after that. It was probably my imagination but the rhythmic thumping became louder. The procedure lasted no more than ten minutes but I stared at the ceiling longer than that. When he handed me a towel to wipe myself clean, I asked him if he saw anything unusual.

“I found a very small cyst,” he said. “Cysts are normal and they come and go. This one is probably benign.”

I knew that but I preferred to hear that everything was clear.

“If anything, your doctor will let you know. When is your next appointment?”

In two weeks, I said.

“He will see you sooner if this is urgent.”

I remembered the anecdote and asked him if blood flow was otherwise fine.

“Oh, everything is OK,” he said.

And I thought, Yes, everything is OK.

Everything except that.

Better Friday

2008-03-27T22:40:00.000-07:00

Better Friday

The doctor's first suggestion was to cut off the source of my semen.

He later said that he was only joking but you can understand why I didn't find this the least bit amusing.

“Start at the beginning. Tell me what happened,” he said as he put on his latex gloves.

And I told him.

It started three days ago, right before Maundy Thursday. Seated at my desk, I felt horrific pain. I staggered to the bathroom and clutched my balls. I have not molested myself in a few days and the sensation was like being kicked in the groin.

Twice.

“Did you relieve yourself there?” he asked.

No, I said. I don't mix business with pleasure.

I knew that the pain will subside in an hour or two so I bore down and went to work. By the time I made my way home, it was a dull throbbing ache. I walked with a slight swagger, my legs in a wide stance and people thought I was someone special.

What's life without a little pain? I said.

“Tell me, when you got home, what did you do?” he asked as he sat on his stool and told me to pull my pants down.

I found God, I wanted to tell him. Right on my browser, as every little moan of wannabe starlets forced their way out of the tinny little speakers my computer had. I thought of every nasty situation I can pull out of my head and from some places I didn't know I could. I did the deed, quicker than I thought, and went for a run. I went home that night to an empty bed and the memory of rapture in my hand.

“This second time, there was blood,” he said as he cupped my balls and rolled his fingers around each one.

Yes, there was. There was plenty of blood. And I haven't touched myself since.

You're very good at that, I said. It's amazing how nice I am to people who have me by the balls.

“I don't feel any lumps. Is this part tender?” he asked.

Yes, I said. Stick a fork in it. It's done.

“Well, it seems like you have an infection.”

From all the sex I'm not having?

“Are you sexually active?”

No. Do I count myself? I wanted to tell him that he's the most action I've had in months but it would have been inappropriate.

“I'll write a prescription for antibiotics, we'll see if it clears up. See me again in two weeks.”

Maybe you could buy me dinner first.

I went home and started the medication. Although this is relatively uncommon, I read it is most often benign.

The cause could have been a lot of things or even none at all.

Because I started biking again, I could have injured myself in some way. Or maybe I did have an infection from out of nowhere. Or maybe because my second go-around Wednesday night was right after running and my elevated blood pressure caused veins to burst from too much love.

Or maybe because god has a sick sense of humor and this was her way of telling me not to jack-off on the most holy week of the year. Her way of telling me to at least wait until Easter when there was a reason to celebrate.

And wouldn't you know, when I had the courage to test myself Sunday morning, the semen was normal.

And then I thought to myself, I'm getting tired of all these mind games.

Two Wheels on a Sandy Stretch

2008-03-15T22:16:00.000-07:00

Two Wheels on a Sandy Stretch

You can count the number of dreams because they equal the grains of sand on the stretch.

I had my feet pumping up and down on two wheels with the salty wind whipping through my hair. The winding path brought me to the circus of Venice Beach and I had to stop and look around.

On the side of the pedestrian walkway facing a derelict cantina, a crowd was gathering around acrobatic performers doing backflips. The music was coming from a boombox set on the concrete path next to a dog that was missing one eye. They took turns jumping on top of one another to the amazement of the spectators.

The sidelines were filled with vendors selling art. Glass bottles colored with mutes and louds were scattered next to miniature steel sculptures of windmills and classic cars. The wheels of the cars turned as kids passed. Paintings of nightmarish scenes framed a stall and shouted the effects of illegal intoxication. On the other side, there was a shop selling shirts with humorous slogans cascading from the ceiling. The witty text drew a small crowd of people and some took photographs so their amusement will last longer. The funny thing was that most of the shirts told truths that we already knew.

I passed by a shop that sold pipes. There was a glass one that sold for less than I thought it would and I was tempted to buy. It was one of those moments in life when you had to choose to commit to something you knew was wrong and maybe out of character. I reasoned that I did not bring a bag and moved on to the next store selling sunglasses.

A woman was in front of a mirror trying an oversized pair of sunglasses. She told her friend that this look was fashionable and suggested that she should get one herself. I could not help but think that if being fashionable meant looking ridiculous, I would rather pass on the glamour. When they both went to the cashier to buy the pair they tried on, I realized that I was fighting a losing battle.

Baking in the heat outside the shop was a line of vagrants. Young and old with their bags set on the sporadic patch of grass, they strummed their guitars and sang tunes about life on the road. I listened and watched, amazed at how they blended with the scenery. Theirs was the color of freedom that went so well with the pacifying blue of the ocean and I wanted to blend in with them.

I passed by a team of players holding mallets in their hand. The game they were playing involved a ball passing through a bent wire with the prongs digging into the dirt. Their concentration hid their attention, visible only to the task, and they were unaware of the children on skateboards in this place they call dogtown. One of the children fell off his board and hit the concrete. He hesitated before getting up, clutching his arm which may or may not have been injured. He got up and I knew that he was going to be alright just because he did.

A café right across the skatepark was filled with people and birds. The flock of people talked louder to overcome the music of the street and to me, they were no more distinguishable from the birds waiting for some bread or fish. A little child ran across the flock to scare the birds away but they merely stepped aside. They had more sense than the child who slipped on shit caking the pavement.

In the distance, I saw beautiful houses with glass walls. Inside the houses, the rich had a couch, a television, tables and some chairs. Exactly what I had only better. I can't see why they had to go through the trouble. The view from their glass houses would have been enough and I wanted to wake up for the rest of my life to the sound of ocean waves crashing, to the light of silver clouds above a vast pool of blue water as far as the eye can see.

I held the stem of my ride and walked among the tourists, the locals, the vagrants and the nobodys. I could count their dreams because they equal the grains of sand on the stretch.

I crunched my heels on the pavement and set off on two wheels on a sandy stretch. I had to go back home, away from the circus of Venice beach, and deal with the reality that came with my normal couch, television, tables, and chairs.

My normal life.

The Go-See

2008-03-07T22:44:00.000-08:00

The Go-See

If someone asks me why, I always say I did it for the money.

Even when I felt the designer's thumb resting on the head of my dick as I was being fitted, I tell myself I have to make rent. And I console myself by thinking that I'd been through worse. At least this time, I told myself, I'm getting paid.

Summer of 1997.

Bright eyed and fresh out of high school, I ventured into the big city to go to college. By sheer dumb luck, a casting agent found me and offered representation. I heard the pay was good for this sort of thing and I can't bear the thought of my mother shouldering the expense of a decent college education and all the caffeine and drugs that came with it. I can still remember the rows of sewing machines and the industrial smell of oil and textile in the warehouse where the go-see was being held. My very first one.

He was a very jovial man, a little Chinese designer with a balding head. I've never heard of his name but the agent assured me that he was big in the industry. It didn't really matter who he was to be honest. All I knew was that I could pay rent on my shitty little apartment by the University for three months if I got the job.

He extended a pale hand and I shook it. I was all smiles and busy being the charming little devil that I am. His hand lingered and held mine as he asked questions.

Yes, I'm a freshman.

No, I really don't like math and I don't know why I 'm majoring in it.

Yes, I'm not originally from here.

No, I've never done this thing before.

He asked for my portfolio and I told him I didn't have one. I took out a battered 3x5 photo album where amateur shots of me filled every page. Here's one of me standing. Here's one of me sitting. Here's a close-up of my face but don't mind the crooked front teeth, I told him.

“No one's perfect,” he said.

I smiled and my little imperfections shown through.

“I want you to walk for me,” he said. “From this end to that end then come back.”

It was a simple request and I had the basic concept of walking down to a tee. I've been doing it for as long as I remember. One foot in front of the other, slowly if I had to, one step at a time.

Yet, when you know that there's a lot of money resting on that walk, you get nervous. Your knees begin to shake, you stiffen up and you may even falter a little bit. I did every single thing I wasn't supposed to, excluding falling flat on my face, but I might as well have because as soon as I crossed back and started my walk towards him, his smile was gone and that made me uneasy.

I blew it, I thought. I made a mental note to ask the agent for inside tricks but I'm sure she'll tell me to just be myself. People say that even when they don't really mean it.

Imagine my surprise when a grin spread across his face and he asked me to try on a pair of his jeans.

“I want to see how they fit you,” he said. I still have a chance.

I stripped to my boxers and wore the pair which I found tight around the waist. He took a tape measure and asked me to spread my legs. With one hand holding the pant leg, his other hand made its way up my thigh “to measure the inseam”, he said, and even when I felt the designer's thumb resting on the head of my dick as I was being fitted, I told myself I had to make rent. And I consoled myself by thinking that I'd been through worse.

I wouldn't know it at the time but a few months down the road, I'd be propositioned by an older man who would offer to pay my tuition if I just went home with him that night. A few months down the road, a black car will pull up right by my apartment door and the driver would hand me his card, telling me that if I wanted to, he could make me rich and he would even let me drive his car “if our relationship got deep enough”.

I wouldn't know it at the time but a few months down the road, I'd meet a lot of sharks and my naivety will slowly be chipped away to expose a calloused and critical eye. The first chip happening right there and then, inside the warehouse that smelled of oil and textile. With gritted teeth I told myself then to just breathe.

I tell myself now and to anyone else who asks why, I did it just to get by.

The Unexpected Brownie

2008-02-29T21:43:00.000-08:00

The Unexpected Brownie

Fireworks were going off and the 90s rolled in . Our dog Belle was hiding under the couch; her sensitive ears tortured by the hiss and bang of pyrotechnics. The smell of sulfur and ash was filling the house and a gray haze was saturating the velvet dark of our clear, tropical night.

By the lamp post outside, the designated gathering hole of drunkards and fucktards, someone was singing. They had a table filled with alcohol and roasted chicken innards. A head of a suckling pig with the proverbial apple in the mouth. A mound of peanut shells by a television monitor where words were highlighted in time with a mournful tune and a man desperately catching up yet slurring nonetheless.

There was thunderous applause when my mother made her way to the gathering hole. Everyone knew who she was. Belle cowering by my side, I watched my mother grab the mic. She looked at me standing by the front door and, with a wry smile, she grabbed a beer bottle from a greasy hand and played along.

She sang some nameless song, a staple at beer gardens everywhere, about unrequited love. The kind of song that punched through your chest and crushed your still beating heart. The backdrop of colorful flames bursting in the air only added to the intensity of her performance. She finished much to everyone's amusement and as the mic made its way to someone else, I went inside the house.

What only mattered in my head back then was the need to go to sleep as the minutes of the new year ticked on. Belle settled by my bed where I lay as the fireworks wound down, sporadic bursts here and there illuminating my bedroom window.

I drifted briefly when I woke to a commotion and found half a dozen strangers crowding in the living room. A man with shaggy hair was setting my mother on the couch and a woman with tendrils of hair dripping with sweat was frantically fanning her pale face.

What nobody told her was not to eat the fucking brownies.

I thought she was dead and I bawled my eyes out.

Imagine a ten year old kid with snot coming out of his nose and his eyes red from all the crying. Imagine this kid sobbing his heart out on the bosom of some degenerate stranger who was probably responsible for the death of his mother in the first place. Imagine this kid recording everything in his head and replaying every crucial moment from when they carried his mother into his living room to when they wrapped her in a blanket to keep her warm. Imagine him finally shutting up when the degenerates started laughing. Imagine him looking up at those faces with rage in his eyes, searing their faces in his brain. Imagine his joy when his mother's hand stirred under the blanket and a groggy voice told him that everything was okay. Imagine how he felt when the coaster ride ended with his brain nearly fried from all the adrenaline running through him.

Almost two decades later, imagine this once ten year old boy still angry at those degenerates for making him believe that his life was almost over; his anger still boiling that he still sees the white sheet covering his mother's motionless body. One of the first few moments when he flirted with the thought of hurting other people just because he can and if only he ran into the kitchen to grab a knife, he probably would have made all that anger disappear.

And it was all because nobody told her not to eat those fucking brownies.

Assholes.

Godsplitters

2008-02-23T00:53:00.000-08:00

Godsplitters

The thought that I might be dying crossed my mind twice that morning.

Once, inside the underground train on the way to work when I judged someone based on how they stank and twice, when I sat at my desk too paralyzed with pain to move when I thought I was growing a tumor in my head.

And it was only a Wednesday.

The morning began like any other morning.

My eyes opened to the blinking 12:00 AM on the lying music player, a full minute before the alarm next to my bed, set at 6:00 AM, would sound and I'd disarm it before it chirped. Slowly, I got up and out of bed. I patiently waited for whatever song it would be that would occupy my mind as I got ready for work. I wondered if it was just me or if anybody else hears music during the first few minutes of a silent dawn. The music was usually something I've never really cared about nor heard in its entirety and yet, most mornings, it'd play over and over in my head until I switched to my iPod, which drowned it out.

That morning, Sexual Healing was spinning.

Oatmeal in a bowl with non-fat milk, nuked for three minutes with a sachet of Splenda and I was sifting through my feeds. A quick shower and a change of clothes while not bothering to shave and I was out the door to take the Metro to the subway station by the Wiltern.

At the end of the subway car, a man sat who had a very noticeable stench. He wasn't drooping to one side nor was he passed out. He was just watching, observing, and maybe even contemplating. Call it gut instinct or whatever you like but he made me uneasy.

I sat a few rows ahead with my back facing him and the train rolled sluggishly on the tracks. A few stops and passengers got on and off. A young girl wearing faux-emo make up and tight pants sat across where I was. An oversized shoulder bag was draped across her thin frame, fabric black and patterned with pink dots. She was in a daze and I thought that she needed to get out more.

The train stopped at the 7th and Metro station and most passengers got off. The doors were about to close when the young girl let out a miffed scream and bounded to her feet, out the closing doors, but not before glancing back at the man with the very noticeable stench. I remember thinking that in a few seconds, a bullet will be piercing my skull and Sexual Healing will abruptly end.

I thought about the mess my scattered brain was going to make on the floor and how I'd be putting a dent in everybody's day by delaying train service for most of the morning just because I sat with my back facing a man with a very noticeable stench.

And I thought that this wasn't the way I wanted to die.

Time returned to some form of normalcy when I realized that I was still alive and that the young girl, probably dreaming about her next hit of E, only almost missed her stop. The man was gone but Marvin Gaye was still in my head, singing about getting laid. I stepped out of the train and proceeded to the bus way to wait for the tram that would take me to the office.

Outside, the sky was a dull shade of gray and what I could only describe as shimmering light started to creep around the periphery of my vision. It was no different from having multiple blind spots and that things are appearing and reappearing randomly around me. The last time this happened was a few days earlier, when I just finished running at the gym and I had to wait for a few minutes before my vision cleared enough that I could drive. What followed next was one of the most painful headaches I've ever experienced.

And I was having it again when I got to the office.

Sitting motionless at my desk, with what felt like an ice pick stabbed and twisted behind my left eye, I became suddenly aware of the irritating things all around: the unnatural light of fluorescent tubes above me, the amplified noise of the copier, the scent of my co-worker doused in offensive perfume, and the slightly fishy smell of the office in general. All of these things were magnified to the point where my stomach started to heave and I had to go inside the dark and quiet conference room to compose myself.

And in the dark, for the second time that morning, I thought I was dying.

I thought that maybe I had a tumor growing in my head which could explain the visions and pain. I thought about having to undergo surgery, radiation treatments and dependency on drugs that would lead me to the brink of death. I thought about the people who will suffer with me and the times of their lives they would spend on watching me waste away.

Think delaying train service but on a more personal level.

And all the while, I'm thinking that this wasn't the way I wanted to die.

I was seven years old when I had dysentery. My vomit changed from chunky to brown to pale yellow in a span of hours when I absolutely had nothing else but stomach acid to heave. My head was swimming and felt higher than a balloon on crack and I could vaguely feel arms scooping me up to rush me to the hospital.

I was pleading with my mother to just let me lie on the bed and sleep because I felt extremely tired. I even told them to go ahead and buy drugs because I'd be right there waiting for them to come back. I even offered to take the damn things if they'd just let me sleep.

I started to drift into this blissfully deep and dark tranquil sleep when I felt a hand shaking me awake. My mother was telling me not to fall into it because I may never wake up again. I stayed awake for her but if I had my way, that was the way I wanted to go.

Quiet. Painless. Right.

I left the conference room when I felt I could and I sought a doctor in our department for an impromptu consult. He confirmed, after browsing what seemed like a tome of medical info, what the logical part of my brain was saying, which was that I was probably having migraines because of the symptoms I described to him: the shimmering lights, increased sensitivity to light, sounds and annoying co-workers, and headaches that happened on one side of the head, which usually lasted for hours.

I've yet to see my real doctor for a formal diagnosis and I may not even do it since I can count on one hand the number of times all of the symptoms happened all throughout my life. I'm not looking forward to getting another set of pills to take in addition to what I already do. This migraine is just another one of those things that make me realize that I am not a unique fingerprint in this world.

I'm as predictable and classic textbook as anybody else.

Roads Not Taken

2008-02-17T22:24:00.000-08:00

Roads Not Taken

Traffic was moving at a brisk pace.

This was highly unusual given that the 405 freeway is known as one of the most unforgiving freeways in Los Angeles. Even on a Sunday morning, you'd find yourself stranded in a sea of honking cars, barely crawling along with the tempers of drivers in stark contrast to the serenely cloudless sky above this small patch of Southern California.

Yet, I was cruising relatively quickly as the exit of Robertson Boulevard passed, followed immediately by La Cienega.

Beside me, there's a Bentley with tinted windows; dark and imposing. Behind me, a Mercedes Benz convertible, revving and getting poised to pass. My unfortunate four cylinder engine firing away in a vain attempt to at least match the BMW's speed flying in front of me. It was one of those days when the opulence of where I am intimidates me and I feel like I don't belong.

Well, more so on this day, anyway.

I tried to remember what I wanted to be when I imagined I was at the age I am now and I'm reminded of the short class experiment one of my professors conducted in college. He asked us to write on a sheet of paper what our goals would be at different stages in our lives, be it 5 , 10, or 15 years from then. I recall being full of optimism and I filled the paper with a grandiose, yet to my sense, logical sequence of events.

After 5 years, I would have had a high-paying job in management, consulting, or both. After 10 years, I'd be pursuing my Masters Degree and maybe purchasing my first house. After 15 years, I'd be married and be on my way to a PhD, earning a larger salary and maybe shuffling off little kids to school in the morning. I would have owned the house that I've always wanted, with a wife who loves me and with a job that I enjoyed doing.

Inflation didn't cut into the equation. Nor did reality. In fact, I'm nowhere near any of my goals and that scares me because this is the only life I'm ever going to live and I'm constantly asking myself if I am doing the right thing and if the road I'm taking is the right road to my happiness.

I ignore that little voice in my head telling me to forego everything and follow my dream not only because I'm faced with the prospect of going homeless and hungry if I did but also because I don't really know what I want. And this has been going on for years now.

It's not really a consolation that my other friends are stuck in the same rut as I am. Well, those who live close to me anyway. T, who lives in Texas, is the most successful among all of us if the barometer for success is wealth, security, and love. I won't lie and tell myself that I don't want any of those things for myself because I still have the sheet of paper that proves that I do but the difficulty I'm having is determining how to get to the point where he is now.

Everyday I have to work, I find it hard to get up in the morning but when I think about what I really want to do, I draw a blank. I try to know what it is that would get me motivated to get dressed and to present myself proudly and yet, I can't seem to put my finger on it. Maybe something altruistic, which would have tied nicely to my childhood dream of being a doctor; constantly sent on missions to far-flung areas in the world, helping the lives of starving and malnourished children in sub-Saharan Africa. Then reality kicks me in the nuts while shouting that I could never afford a medical education. With great difficulty, I try not to blame my mother for not giving me the education that I feel I deserved just because she simply cannot afford it and I won't blame the early death of my father though sometimes I wish that I could.

At least I can point to someone else as the culprit instead of myself.

And much like a toppling line of dominoes, I look in the mirror and begin to hate the sorry desk in the corner of my small room; the cramped closet with all the mismatched hangers, the strewn pillows that I sleep on every night, alone. I begin to hate my life because I know that I am capable of doing and being so much more. Even though I try to convince myself that I should not be judged by how much money I make and the value of my life is not dictated by how much wealth I have in the bank, the truth is, I am.

I feel inferior because the opulence of “what could have been” surrounds me.

It would have been nice if I had someone to converse with but in as much as I love where I am, with its sunny weather and beautiful beaches, it's very difficult to meet genuinely sincere people. There are moments when I'd catch myself thinking that maybe I shouldn't be hanging out with the friends I have now because we seem to be moving in the same direction (unintentionally, I'm not sure) and it might be time to inject a new perspective in the friendship department. Yet, Los Angeles is toxic when it comes to forging relationships. People barely acknowledge, if they do at all, one another as they pass by on a busy intersection. Everything is superficial that it's disheartening to even ask how someone is because it's just a reflex you say when you meet someone; no different from saying “good morning” or “hello”.

No one really cares if you're having a bad day. And for once, I'd like to meet someone genuinely interested in knowing how my day went. As the years went by that I've never really expanded my circle of friends, it starting to dawn on me that I may never be able to do it.

As I drove on the freeway, trailing behind the beautiful cars that could have been, with drivers inside living the life that I could have had, I asked myself again if the road I'm on is the right road or if it was about time that I took the next exit.

Reminder

2008-02-15T17:59:00.000-08:00

Reminder

Lest I forget...

There it is: a blank sheet. What now?

Have any thoughts running through your head that you’d like to share with everyone? Will you let one of the voices go through this time?

So, what’ll it be?

Write about that girl who woke up naked in the middle of a football field at midnight. Or maybe that kid who used to love chocolate but not anymore just because he went to church as an altar boy. Or maybe that couple who leaves their house every morning, all dressed in black and wearing globs of suntan on them and let them be the normal ones.

See? You got a lot on your mind to write about. The voices don't stop, do they?

Write about rhyming words and fragmented thoughts. Be abstract. Be the Picasso of written medium. Be Kandinski and let your ink dance on that virginal sheet and call it art. Be Dali and make time slow down to a crawl. Let them escape to a world they have never seen but you frolic in, every second of your mind.

Every damn second of your mind.

Don’t worry that it’s not good enough. Don’t worry that they won’t understand you. Don’t worry that they won’t care. Don’t worry that you don’t matter. Don’t worry about anything else.

Worry about that blank sheet: that taunting empty sheet.

On that sheet you are God. On that sheet you decide the fate of your creation. On that sheet they find pain. On that sheet they find love. On that sheet you kill them. On that sheet you let them live. On that sheet you are the single greatest force that no one else can ever imagine.

And it starts with a single stroke.

Galaxies are born, wind moves, music plays, tides change, time stops; everything changes at your command. From something as profound as life in the hereafter to something as mundane as a coffee cup, you hold the force of nature in your hands. Anywhere, from the searing heat of the Sahara to the frigid cold of Antarctica, you have dominion over anything and everything that moves and even those that do not. Absolute power is potential on that sheet.

That blank sheet.

So, with the power of God at your fingertips, what now?

Belt

2008-01-12T22:54:00.000-08:00

Belt

The music was loud.

The air was thick with the heat of a hundred writhing bodies. The beat was pulsating and penetrating every core of my body as hive energy moved me to dance. She was staring at me a few feet away. The tension was so thick, you could cut it with a knife.

She had a friend with her. He came closer to me, noticing that all my other friends were engaged in their own rituals of hedonism on the dance floor and I was all alone.

“Your friends left you all alone?”

“I guess so,” I said as I leaned towards his ear. The music pumping from overhead was getting louder as the seconds passed.

She wasn't too far behind him. I shifted my attention to her and leaned in.

“You want to dance?” I asked her neck. I made sure she felt my breath on her hot skin. She wrapped her hands around me and put my leg between hers. I took that as a yes. Our lips connected and we danced intertwined. From behind us, I could hear her friend shouting, “I knew he was straight.”

Good for you, I thought. The challenge to spot a straight guy in a gay bar fishing for straight and vulnerable (read: drunk) women is a difficult one for sure. He got me but I was the one who scored.

Rewind.

And we were guests.

Jose is a good friend of T and Jose is, like T, of the homosexual persuasion. An older latino with salt and pepper hair and a very trim physique, Jose greeted us as we drove into the lot of his warehouse in Houston. Last time I saw him was a few years ago. This time, he was nice enough to shelter us at his pad, a cozy unit on the thirtieth floor of a high-rise right in the heart of downtown Houston. G told me I'd like his apartment with the stunning panorama and interior design and she was right. The irregularly cut cardboard pinned on the bathroom walls and the barber chair he had in the corner of the living room won me over.

The itinerary that night involved us getting shit-faced drunk with all thirty of T's friends (with all their names to remember) at all the bars we could get into in a short few hours. They tried to fit straight bars in the schedule but they seemed to have trouble remembering where they were and were conveniently left out of the final plan.

I didn't argue. M and I were outnumbered, and even she is suspect. I stopped myself from jokingly saying that I've been to so many gay bars since T came out because I realized that no matter how I looked at it, there is no way that it's a plus.

We made the rounds that night with me standing sheepishly in one corner as I waited for sweet inebriation to kick in. The last bar we went to, South Beach, holds a certain notoriety for me. This was the same bar I was propositioned at by a gigantic hairy man wearing PVC and leather. The exact bar where T and M were kicked out for being unruly (and then I was thinking, where's the love?). The exact bar where G and I lit the ledge on fire with our gyrations. We were awesome and very drunk.

That night, I was bored and I saw her staring. I decided to play.

Forward.

And I have her hands on my torso. I was leaning on the counter getting her a drink as she was stroking me under my shirt. My eyes were registering flashes as her friends, standing a few feet away, kept taking photographs possibly to upload on MySpace or wherever it is that youth destroy their integrity now.

I think her name is Betty, even though I thought I heard her say Bunny, which, all things considered, wasn't very strange at all.

A tall, lithe brunette with a delicate face, Betty was charming as far as bar hookups went. She got very intimate with my tonsils and I felt like this warranted her phone number. I gave her my phone so she could type it in. Silly me. She dialed her phone number to make sure that I was typing the right number in hers. Her method was way more efficient than mine, and this way, I couldn't give her the local pizza number by mistake. She was up for another round of tonsil hockey and I guess she liked it because she apologized when I tried to come up for air.

She was set to leave in the morning for New York, where she'll be celebrating New Year's and possibly finding another teammate to play with. I was never very good at this but I suppose I held her attention long enough that I got bored again. She was very hammered at this point and I couldn't possibly go through anything else with her even though some very naughty thoughts involving belts did cross my mind. I extricated myself as gracefully as I could and told her that my friends were probably leaving by now.

A few minutes later when I returned to the dance floor coming from the bathroom, she was there and told me how strange it was that my friends were still rocking out when I told her that we would be leaving pretty soon.

I gave her another round of “guess my dinner” just to leave all that awkwardness behind us. She promptly and gratefully shut the hell up.

Like I said, I wasn't very good at this. I sent her a message after the first to say what's up, which seemed to fit the three-day rule everybody's advocating. She said she was flying back to Houston as I would be making my way to Los Angeles.

I told her thanks for making that night a little more memorable and if ever she finds herself on my side of the world to let me know.

I resisted telling her that I'd be more than glad to show her my belt.