Point of view

The Crying Man

What a pathetic scene.  I would never cry like that over a woman.  She is gorgeous though. Ok, here we go, I hope this isn’t awkward.
“Excuse me ma’am, would you like to order now, or just the coffee?”
“Just the coffee for now.” She told me with a forced smile making only quick eye contact.
“ OK no problem, I’ll come back later and check.”  I smiled back, my most sympathetic smile. That pitiful dude didn’t even look at me.  His face was buried in his hands and his chest was heaving.
Oh man, maybe I would be crying like that after all.  She had those huge supermodel eyes with dark eyeliner that made them appear even larger, olive skin that made me think she was of middle eastern decent.  I thought of what she would look like in one of those Arabic headdresses, a hijab. That is one beautiful woman.  When I got to the kitchen I told Jose, “man, buddy take a break from those dishes for a second and look at this scene, this pathetic dude crying over this gorgeous woman.”
We peered through the round window of the stainless steel door.   
      “That aint no woman dude, that’s a man bro.” Jose said with a smile, “I knew you was gay?”
“What, whatever man, that is a woman, she is like Jazmin, an Arabian princess!”
She was rubbing the poor guys back.  Then she looked around, surveying who was watching, and she saw us, obviously staring at her with our stupid grins.  We both ducked.


Fabiana didn’t want to be in this position.  She genuinely loved Rob, but, she was bored, emotionally and sexually.  Her philosophy on love was simple, you can never lose a love, it is innate, and therefore it only changes focus, never lost.  She rubbed Rob’s back, he had on the fuzzy wool sweater, that she had bought him for Christmas.  She was embarrassed, the restraunt was bustling with people, an audience.  Fabiana was not used to a man crying.  Brazilian men don’t cry.  She had never seen her father cry, not once, not even when they visited her sister, bruised and unconscious in the hospital.  Rob was panting like a baby.  The waiter came up and asked for the order.  He looked sympathetic, embarrassed.
     “Excuse me ma’am, would you like to order now, or just the coffee?”
Fabiana couldn’t meet the waiters eyes for more then a second.  She told him they were fine.  The waiter left and Rob blurted out in a sickening mixture of snorts and words,
   “My mom, snort, she told me, whimper, not to marry a Brazilian, sniff, sniff, she will only use, you.”  Rob looked up at Fabbiana, his face red and liquid snot ran down his nose.  “You used me!”
Fabiana didn’t answer the accusation.  She looked around to see if anyone heard, if anyone was watching.  She saw two faces starring at her from the round window of the swinging kitchen doors.  They both disappeared as soon as she noticed them.


There comes a point when you just aren’t embarrassed anymore.  Sure I was breaking down publicly.  But that cold bitch did this to me, let her be embarrassed.  I sat there in the busy diner, crying, all I could think about was her with another man.  Would she make the same sounds that she made with me when she made love to some stranger?  She taught me to be so emotional, she put me through roller coaster of emotions.  We never had a day where we didn’t fight.  We didn’t have a day that we didn’t make love.
The waiter came up to take the order.  I couldn’t even look at him.  Let that bitch deal with what she did.  She was rubbing my back, trying to comfort me.  I bet she doesn’t even notice that I am wearing the sweater she bought for me.  I told her that she used me.  She did use me.  She didn’t even have the guts to answer.   She was fine, she had her armor, a philosophy that just serves to protect her from hurt.  She will regret this.      

Massage

      She was fat and not that pretty kind of fat, you know, that kind of fat, smooth skinned curvaceous type, that giggly, pretty fat girl, that wasn’t Maureen.  She had a crop of short red hair and a powerful build, Scottish stock.  She didn’t put up any airs, she was loud.  I say loud but maybe she just seemed loud the way an older confident, larger woman can seem loud.  When I met her at the farmers market, when I had that horrible stiff neck, she was wearing a loose fitting black dress, with a purple scarf, a shawl,  made somewhere in India. Four big silver hoops dangled on her ears and clinked like wind chimes.
I walked rather skeptically up to her booth, “Maureen’s Body Work.”  There was this sort of whale music playing, that kind of new-age meditation music.  I explained to her my problem, my neck, the popping noise that it had made when I tried to bench-press too much weight, how for the last two days I hadn’t been able to turn my head from side to side, the loss of mobility.
“Hop in the seat pumpkin,” she told me, “ I’ll check you out in a second.”
I was willing to try anything, having a pain in the neck is, after all, a pain in the neck.  I sat in the massage chair and rested my head face down on one of those special made head-donuts, exposing my neck and waiting for her diagnosis.  As I sat, my head buried, I heard Maureen talking to a passer-by in in Spanish.  ‘Huh,’ I thought, I didn’t expect that woman to know Spanish.
She came close, and I heard a plastic bottle squirt it’s contents into her hands.  The smell of patchouli oil or something very similar found my nose.  I rolled my hidden eyes.  Then I felt her oily hands on my neck.  She wasn’t playing around.  Her hands instantly found tight knots high up on my neck.  That place that almost never gets attention where the very end of your spine connects to your head.
“You men, you macho men, lift weights like gorillas.”
I didn’t reply, I couldn’t, the sweet pain of her strong, knowing hands kept me quite.
“Women, they know when they’re overdoing it, you need to breath when you work out.  Does that hurt honey, Is it too much?”
“No, esta bien,” I said, showing off my own Spanish.
“Oh you speak Spanish! That’s good,” she said her hands were kneading me, caressing me, curing me.
“Spanish is my love making language,” she said.  She reached down gave my butt a push, it tickled. I jumped a little.
“You see you are sensitive down there.”  She continued on my neck with small karate chops.
“We are taught in the west that sex is dirty.  That makes certain areas on our bodies sensitive”
“Ahh mi amorcita me cojes el mejor que he estado cojida.”  She said in dirty Spanish, it basically means, “ahh my little lover you fuck me the best I have ever been fucked.”
“You, see how sweet that sounds in Spanish?  Oh baby fuck me!"  She said and gave a couple of gorilla grunts.  “Now that just sounds horrible.  But you know that don’t you honey?”
She told me to sit up, I did.
“Try to move you head now Hun.”
I did, and I looked to the left and to the right without any pain.

 

                      

Mood Swings

      What a strange time to be alive.  I wake each day with sweepingly different outlooks on life.  Two current events provide me with a an analogy of my moody pendulum.  Egypt offers inspiration and the power of youth, revitalizing my outlook.  Then, close to my heart, Mexico and her immense, seemingly unsolvable problems overwhelms and fills me with a deep sadness.  My personal outlook battles between youth, a limitless future and the unsolvable puzzle, a devastating acceptance.  That is where I am, waking at times, twenty-nine years old, young and excited, twenty-nine years old, stagnant and uninspired.
I need to stick with my Egypt and use her to converse with my Mexico.  Accept and swim toward the uncharted waters of the future, my wide eyes held high above the water.  Keep learning, keep swimming and moving forward.  Because my Mexico is a great nation and even, although stricken with lead has too much potential to sink at any age.
Maybe a little sappy, but sap rises!            

“Seymour”

     What I remember most was his hands.  The way he would use them  brown hands, with his long fingers to reach out and grab my old man hands.  They always felt warm and kind of damp.  When I lived in the park, before they made me move here, to this sterile shit box, Jose would come by maybe once or twice a week.  I could tell it was him, by the way he knocked; three quick knocks, a pause, then one more knock.  He always came around dusk.  I lived in space number one thirty-six and I had a nice trailer.  They told me not to give him any more money, but I didn't mind, I liked when he came to visit.  I’m not a queer, I mean, I was in the Navy.  He was just a friend, ya know, a friend that needed help.  Pauline, she was my neighbor, space number one twenty-nine, right on the corner,  she told me that Jose was drug addict and that her son Paul, if she wanted him to, would pound him good.  Pauline always fed them god damn cats, her trailer smelled like cat piss.  I never went over there. 
When Jose came he always brought me something to eat.  Usually some kind of fruit.  He said it was good for me.  He told me that his mom has diabetes too and the doctor says fruit is the best medicine for the diabetes.  Sometimes he would ask if he could take a shower.  I told him, “ok Jose, you can take a shower but I’m sorry, I don’t have any money today.”  He would take off his clothes with the bathroom door open.  I didn’t look at him but I saw him, ya know?  The trailer would steam up, he took long showers, for fifteen minutes, or so.  Not like me, I take quick showers.   I’d stand up when I heard the water turn off.  I can’t stand up for that long no more, my knees don’t hold up so good.  I would go to the kitchen and make like I was doing something, like the dishes or looking for something in the cabinet ya know?  That’s when he would grab my hands, he had nice hands.  He never wanted that much money, just ten dollars, or so.  But I would always tell him, no, ya know, at first.  He would take both of them hands and grab one of mine and look at me with them oval eyes, those eyes were the color of that rock, that rock made of that prehistoric sap, I can’t remember the name.  Those was powerful eyes, dang sad eyes, desperate, ya know.  He’d tell me the money was for cigarettes.  I’d tell him to quit that shit, cigarettes aint nothing but a waste of money.

The police came one night right after Jose visited.  They said they was from elder abuse prosecution unit.  I hadn’t never heard of such a thing.  They asked me all kinds of questions and wanted to come inside my trailer.  I told them I was just fine but they had there clip board and was writing all sorts of things down and looking around. They even opened up my cabinets.  They asked me about Jose and if I was giving him any money. They told me about a senior self-defense class or something like that.  I told them that’s just crazy I cant do no damn karate, with my knees and my diabetes.  They said it wasn’t that kind of self defense, more about protecting my assets.  My assets imagine that.  Before they left one of them cops, a woman, she told me, “Seymour we are going to be coming around more often to check up on you.” She told me , “you need to remember to eat more fresh fruit.”