I am the proud father of several small plants, a couple of medium sized plants, two fake plants, and one big plant. And all of them are dying—even the fake ones. I water them with spicy Tamarindo Vodka. Is that wrong? It could be worse—at least they go out happy. Pink Floyd serenades them as they wither. If I knew I was about to die, I’d want Vodka and ‘Wish You Were Here’ instead of Pennington plant food and faucet water. Death is quiet. It’s better to go out hungry than silent. But my babies don’t get either. This is the only voice they hear:
Two weeks ago, Chris from MVP Doors brought his dad to fix my balcony door after my neighbor called to complain for the seventieth time in seven months. I thought she was complaining because of my extracurriculars. But no. It was my door. I offered them water—not Tamarindo Vodka—but they might as well have been drunk. For two weeks my door slid like a credit card in the crease of a fat neck, but also sounded like it too. The lady just never stopped singing. I sent fifty voice memos to Chris. No context. Just whistles. It was horrid.
…until it wasn’t. I grew quite fond of her. Slowly, and unbelievably, I began to look forward to her whistles. She kept me company. I was never alone. I was never upset. How could I be? I opened the door to love thinking it was annoyance. They’re unlikely neighbors. She became my wife and my wingman in one. Asses clapped in harmony. Couldn’t sleep? Had to fuck to drown out the noise. Couldn’t hear my thoughts? Had to drum them out. When she was too loud to be ignored, I left the house. She may have killed my plants, but she inspired me to live. My orchids watched me become a better man for it. I joined the world one whistle at a time. And sure enough, she was always waiting to talk to me whenever I returned.
But just as my kids have gone, so did my wife. She joined my plants in eternal silence. Now the Vodka only pours itself for me. Now I can only hear my thoughts. And they don’t whistle. They shriek. Chris and dad returned a couple of days ago to tie her vocal cords around my neck. At the time I was relieved. I was young. I was two days too young. I welcomed the quiet back with open arms not yet realizing what I would have to let go of. She wasn’t perfect, but she was mine. She wasn’t nice to listen to—at all—but I never tried. And now I won’t get the chance to. I just have to replace her. I have to be a better husband than I am a father. But the merry go round of potential wives that grace my apartment is dwindling, and my door is no longer singing. Now I have to yell while I masturbate.
11:42 on a Monday night. A banana is depleted, not ripe, just emptied into my liver, not alcohol, just three Michelob Ultras, not potassium, just alcohol.
She was repulsed. My hand was left unheld. Was it me? I could tell it wasn’t. I asked if she was on her period. It wasn’t a question. Yes, I can see it. I can smell it. I can smell the blood and hormones and cramps and pain and the tears not yet able to fall.
Do it. Cry. Yearn. Want. Love. Ask for more until it’s enough. Because I can’t. Your vulnerability is poison to me. Your tongue wraps itself around my mind and licks parts of me I have yet to find. In due time.
No one understands heartache. What are my words trying to say? Like crying in the rain. There are some sounds that you can’t hear. There are some eyes that cry no tears. Mine are so fucking dry. I feel it. I feel it all. Shit inside me Activia can’t get out. I’ll wake up tomorrow with the walls still intact, hell, restricted and reenforced with booze.
The pen keeps going, detached from my hand as if it has anything to say, empty of value to provide but its empty promises and platitudes, things I pretend to want to do, realizations I haven’t had, advice I’ve given but never received, dreams that stop me from being awake.
One dream in particular holds me back. Being a plus in a life other than my own. It’s hard to believe there is no girl waiting for me. There are plenty wanting for. There’s treasure close enough that if I keep digging I’ll find it.
Or I won’t. I’ll come up empty again. Nothing in my pockets. Just sex and a new service care provider letting me know I don’t have any STDs. That’s a lot to show for it. But I’ll have more. I will. Die.
I can’t get away. No. No matter how hard I try. No matter how far I go. My shadow follows me. You’d think by now I’d be alone. You think by now I’d have somewhere to call home. You’d think. So would I. And we’d get nowhere because of it. Thinking all day, as if it matters. I’m going to think so much tomorrow. At nine. At ten. At eleven.
I’ll drink until it all gets too heavy. Until my shirt is no longer just heat but another body on top of me, hugging and holding me as if it were the life I’m after. But it’s not. It’s a dirty button down with sweat stains in the blistering sun. I’m a tomato walking even though I look like I’ve just come from a run. The shirt is an obituary. My body is a coffin. I’ve died long ago. I don’t know where I’m going except that I do. A sorry grave. But there are no apologies when I’m dead and buried.
I’m not searching for an answer. I don’t have any questions. If I did, I’d feel better. I just have statements written in a pen I received from the girl who resents me.
‘i have a question,’ was the text I received holding two-seven off suit, the greatest hand for poker and age for a rockstar. She’s either going to ask me if I’d love her as a worm or if I’m still in a relationship, I thought, considering my ex was all over my Instagram.
‘I may or may not have answer,’ I typed, preparing to fold so I could focus on whatever Tartarus conversation would soon consume me. But to my surprise, her text was a misspelled invitation to a hotel in Hollywood Beach. I whispered ‘I’m all in’ until I opened up my Google Maps to find it’s more than ten minutes away. It’s too far for pussy. I’m spending $100 a day to breathe in the crisp 66° air of my unfurnished apartment. I want to spend every waking moment here.
She told me, oh so eloquently, ‘u have to be here at noon. Exactly 12pm,’ so I could meet her best friend. ‘girls things,’ was the text that followed.
‘Whose card are we charging room service too?’ I replied.
‘she’s paying one night n I’m paying the other one’
‘What will you be wearing’
‘bikini probably’
‘Does me devouring you at a hotel count as a second date’
‘i think so’
I responded two hours later, ‘This time I’ll try not to kill you.’
Our first date was a near-death experience for her. Not in the romantic way, death by 1,000 orgasms. It was an allergic reaction. The waiter had asked if we had any allergies, I said one of my best quips, ‘Penicillin.’ Under her breath she supposedly whispered something about her being allergic to seafood. Over my breath I ordered the steak and lobster. She didn’t so much as look at it. I thought she was just watching her figure. She sat pretty and split a bottle of Shiraz with me. All was fine and dandy until my cross contaminated lips met with hers. We ended the night with the least sexy choking of all. It was like watching an ugly crier. I was left with a quite the convicted boner. I offered ibuprofen, cocaine, and more wine. She didn’t die. In the morning, I walked a what was left of her corpse out of my apartment, down 10 flights of my garage and out of my life, or so I thought. A week later, I was begged to make my second attempt at her life.
‘u coming?’ was the text I woke up to, long after the rooster screamed, not as a wakeup call but in agony as it melted to death in the Miami sun. Noon. Right on time. I looked at my phone. I had set my alarm for Monday, nice. I put on a pair of dark blue dirty jeans and a black button down, watered all eight of my dying plants, lathered myself in scents better pronounced with a French accent, grabbed a pair of turtle swim-trunks, my shades, and whatever Jack still had to offer, and left my beautiful apartment in the midst of a hangover. After a thirty-minute drive down my parking garage, I was entering a thunderstorm over i95—my favorite weather.
I arrived to a horde of manatees disguised as tourists. Rented cars were up and down the driveway and floral shirts were crowding the sidewalks. I scraped my way through and tucked my car into a nice little spot away from all the commotion, valet, it seemed. I shouldn’t be parking there, I thought, but I did anyways. ‘Fuck the system,’ I said to myself as I strutted into a hotel in the city I live to bang a two-weeks-removed Cuban immigrant without having to pay a dime for the room, the view, or the vagina.There was no fucking of the system, there was only sweet, sweet love.
The double doors opened automatically to a woman with an accent as thick as her ass, the likes of which my grandmother would’ve hated. Cubans hate Cubans. I don’t blame her for this one. She’s loud. She listens to reggaeton in the morning. She laughs ‘jajas’ instead of ‘hahas’ My type. She wore a black bikini and some fishnet thing over her shoulders, as if she just got off the boat. We exchanged kisses, compliments, smiles, and ass slaps straight to the elevator. I felt her up the entire 26 floors. Whenever I’d look at her too long, she would say, ‘staaaaahhhp.’ What the fuck else were we to do? Talk? I had nothing to say to her.
We reached the room. Laid before me were two queen beds and balcony with an ‘intracoastal’ view, which is a fancy way of saying ‘not ocean.’ It was so much worse than my apartment. She dove onto a bed—a much better view. I sucked Jack off for foreplay; I knew by now that she didn’t practice cunnilingus. We fucked, forty-five minutes of something that vaguely resembles love. I was dehydrated so I had to stop. No breakfast yet, barely any water. She clawed and bit and scratched and yelled. I watched her the entire time, all her convulsions, all her orgasms. I barely blinked. If the lights are on and if she looks good, I want to see it. I spoke throughout most of it, as I tend to, with a healthy compilation of grunts, moans, threats, and jokes. I was disrespectful and reassuring. I was rough and I was gentle. I was hard and it was easy. This part was always easy. Afterwards, she lied there like Woody from Toy Story.
I headed downstairs to the outside bar. It was closed. The sky was teasing us with darkness, but no rain. I would’ve had another excuse to sit my ass down at the inside bar and waste away. One drink and a lobster po-boy later, she pulled my arm and led me to the pool. We sat down in a corner far away from all the families. There were loads of them, all too fat to float. I smacked her ass as she left to get us some towels. Shades on, book in hand, drink slightly chilled, for a moment I felt more than pre-nut misery. She broke out of her fishnets and eased her way into the pool, complaining that it was cold the entire time. It was distracting. I normally get drowsy when I read. Now I was getting horny. She asked me to join her, I told her to beg. She didn’t. I joined her anyways. It was nice, not having to pay for this pool, wasting time with her. I needed a distraction.
As she rubbed up against me, I whispered into her ear, ‘let’s fuck right now.’
‘Oh mah gaaashhh,’ she said, ‘You’re crazy. There are kids here.’
‘Give them something to talk about on the flight home. A lesson on anatomy.’
‘Jeeeeesh.’
She was better at making sounds than conversation. I’d also come to learn that she can’t swim so this whole thing really was another attempt. It wasn’t long before we ended up back upstairs, this time, with about the same amount of passion I have while eating leftover steak. It was honestly just as fucking good with far less preparation needed. No turning on the propane. No gathering my utensils. No cleaning. Just tossing it in the microwave and let it spin for a bit. Soon enough, I was back at the bar, with the moon joining me comfortably over the shoreline.
‘Why am I here?’ I asked myself because no one else would.
‘I’m doing a service. A gesture of good will, a noble feat. I am as close to a hero as I’ve ever been. In honor of pride month, I’m spending the night with a tall, dark, and handsome man, Jack Daniels. He fills me up till I’m warm and fuzzy and disoriented—adjectives I normally use to describe the fairer sex and my air fryer, but you know what, I’m an ally tonight. Matter of fact, I’m an ally most nights, days, mornings, and afternoons, regardless of month, when it comes to Jack. I’m a piss poor ally, though. I haven’t finished him off, and that’s what friends are for, right? There’s about 1/6 of him left upstairs napping with the immigrant I just defiled. What a nice pairing. He’s made in America; she just got here two weeks ago. It’s fair to say she’s living the American dream: colonization,’ is what I scribbled on my damp notebook, wet from an unidentified substance on the bar, before she joined me.
My hand, cramping from the pen, couldn’t even hold her. It was okay. She was wearing jeans. They’re not fun to hold. She insisted on leaving the bar for the lounge. I told her I’d rather stay here. We compromised and left to the lounge.
‘Describe me in one word,’ she said.
‘Edible,’ was my answer, despite the fact I hadn’t eaten her out yet and had no plan on doing so—quid pro quo. She said she’d tell me her adjective by the end of the night. No fun.
‘You’re still in love with your ex.’
I nearly spat out my drink. But I didn’t, that would’ve been a waste of alcohol. But imagine it dripping down her chest. I’d bring out a straw. I’d slurp every last drop. She’d be sticky. I’d be okay with that. Still, I would’ve preferred the worm question.
‘Where did that come from?’ tumbled out of me.
‘It’s just obvious. The drinking. The writing. The fucking.’ Ouch. ‘You fuck. You don’t make love. You’re not ready to.’
‘What about you?’ I spoke. If I’m going down, someone’s coming with me. ‘You’re not the poster child for emotional stability. You love the beach, but you can’t swim. You’re always in the water yet allergic to seafood. I almost killed you, yet here I am, with a knife in between us.’
‘You’re dangerous,’ she continued, ‘but I like it. It’s fun.’
After some more verbal foreplay, she returned to the room. I went back to the bar. I wanted to finish this story in peace. My brain was firing on all cylinders, as it tends to whenever my two favorite two vices collide. I wanted to write the ending before it happened. I wanted to—I checked my phone.
‘You know what your word is? Red flag.’ Those are two words, but I let it slide since she was just now learning English. Before I could respond, she texted again, ‘But I’m colorblind.’
As I thought of what to say, six blue bubbles struck me down like Sisyphus’ stone.
‘let’s fuck.’
‘we don’t have to date or sleep together, or know each other.’
‘i spent such a good time fckng.’
‘so i rather keep it that way.’
‘it’s easier’
‘u agree?’
I didn’t agree. I mean, I kind of did, and still do, but a massive anal-gaping hole would’ve been left inside me if I were to pick up the stone again. She’d be another name on a list that I’ve lost count of; another reason to redownload Hinge; another a slutty girl who would live out the rest of her days in my dream journal; another number unsaved. I tried. During the day, as we talked, I got as close to her past as I could without it affecting the future of the night. It turned out she left home and whatever guy made it feel like home. It was the same sob story as me. But I’m the Cuban guy who stayed. The more I listened, the more she wanted to speak, the more I realized she was more than a good fuck, the more I noticed that my grandmother was only slightly right, Cuban girls are toxic but also so damn sweet, like chamoy pickle kits, the more I knew it was a choice to not take her seriously, a conscious effort on my part to supplement any possible real connection with slapping and fucking and unfortunately not cumming, yet. I wanted to get to know her, at least a little. But she didn’t. So, we compromised. I went upstairs. And fucked her. This time, she sucked my dick. This time, I came. This time was the last.
I prefer the company of short women and tall glasses of wine; long conversations and longer fingers with jagged nails and words that can kill me if they’d like. Why am I attracted to what may hurt me? The sight of blood is a sign that we’re alive.
Where are my keys? I pat every part of me. They’re dangling from my jeans in a belt clip that swings as much as my mood—you can hear me coming for a mile away, even though I never do. Shall I drop my date off at her place or drop her to her knees? Shall I walk her to her door or have her run from me? Shall I whisper goodnight or make her scream? There are no doubts. Sex does more than words allow. I can’t talk anyone out of feelings, but I can certainly fuck them out.
She calls me silly, saying ‘It’s the booze.’ I resent that it might be true. Like any boy who likes a girl, flirting is easy when I’m not thinking of what to do. We end up with just enough sweat to add a pinch of salt to her skin, in a bed fit for a king, his wife, and his concubine, regret not having sunken in yet. ‘Did you think this was going to happen?’ I ask. ‘No,’ she lies. She didn’t pack a toothbrush as an alibi. She’s familiar with the way I see her; she knows how it feels to be held captive by my eyes; she only forbids herself to feel such delight to postpone her own demise.
We laugh. We kiss. She finally cries after deciding that being with me was a mistake that she warned her future self not to make. Ironically, she says that in between every kiss. She pulls away with her hands but not her lips. She closes her eyes to prevent seeing what happens after, whereas I close my eyes so I can see before. I tell her to escape; she doesn’t try to anymore. She crumbles every single time, like a fragile glass just waiting for the wine. I fill her with highs that get better over time until she cracks and breaks and spills and overflows and realizes I prefer to drink from the bottle.
Drinks were had, so was she. I do this all too frequently. The night makes it hard to see the lack of true love embracing me. As I lay my head on one of my few pillows, after chewing parts of her she only wanted me to nibble, I’m only left with the fading lullaby of her snores. The mattress drowns any sight of her. I’m feeling her up as a desperate attempt to replay her voice. I can only hear one heartbeat making any noise. She’s already in the morning, asking herself if she still feels the same joy, while I’m stuck in the past, hoping she loves the man I am as well as the boy.
My drumsticks are broken, my palms are calloused, my fingers, provoking melodies and malice, pushing away sounds I struggle to hear because every note leads me further from here.
The art of getting closer to things I may feel involves pushing away everything real, like the piano, the drums, the pen, the runs. My hands and feet are where passion goes numb.
As I bleed, they scream: ‘Dear agony, stop choking me so damn tightly,’ yet I still play tragically hoping to be frightened, instead of fighting to leave.
I try to hold on, hoping something might stay, but more I constrict, the more it slips away. From pen to page, from gulps to sips, it all begins to die the closer I get.
Part of me wishes that when I beat the drum it beats me back.
Part of me wishes that when I strike a chord it stays flat.
Part of me wishes that when I scar the page, my scars erase.
All of me wishes that when I close in on love, no pain awaits.
But as nice a wish as it would be to be pulled by you, it’s never the case, for as long as I push through.
I parked my car two blocks away from heaven—close enough that I wouldn’t sweat on the way to the pearly gates, but far enough to sneak in without a trace. I didn’t want to desecrate anything sacred with the beat-up, unwashed, two-horned pale horse that brought me here, so I left it under a PayByPhone I had no intention of paying.
I walked around the horse to open the door for my passenger princess, just as my father raised me to do. I may not be a good man, but I am a gentleman. There she was, still held tight by her seatbelt, glistening under the approaching moon. My arm grazed her as I reached for my thermos and took a big gulp of water. It was nearly empty. I promptly undid the seatbelt, picked up the 16 oz. bottle of Buffalo Trace bourbon whisky it was protecting, and poured it directly into my thermos. ‘That’ll get me through the night,’ I thought. Matter of fact, I only had one sip before I reached the driveway.
Shoes, sandals, heels, Birkenstocks, a Mini Cooper with checkerboard rearview mirrors and other adult-sized cars, all crowded the porch and the lawn. They guarded the door like garlic to a vampire. At first, I didn’t take off my boots. I didn’t want to get burned. But once I peeked in through the window and saw everyone still by the door, I realized there was no sneaking to be done. I respected the rules and tossed my dirty boots onto the pile.
I sauntered in like a meat puppet in a room of vegans, greeted by everything nice under warm fluorescent lights, everything I’ve been fearing to illuminate, everything far too bright, everything, everywhere, all about God. Two gentle giants greeted me with smiles that could pierce chainmail armor. They were the hosts, a married couple, with white names plucked straight out of the bible—both taller than me in height and morality. They offered water. I would’ve preferred wine. But I didn’t complain. I pointed to my thermos to not arouse any suspicion. ‘Water’s right in here.’ I didn’t have water the rest of the night.
I ungraciously uncorked my body onto a seat next to two friends who couldn’t be happier to see me. I nibbled on whatever hors-d’oeuvres there were and engaged in small talk with the precocious New York chick across from them. She told me about her newfound hometown of Miami Lakes. I told her the only thing that separates it from Hialeah is a bridge they struggle to maintain. I passed her a chip, nothing else came from it. She was taken by a Man I cannot compete with.
It wasn’t long until the event—I don’t know if I should call it that because it was just a group of 20-or-so millennials virtue-masturbating—finally began. We went around the circle taking turns saying our names, where we’d like to live other than the beautiful melting plastic pot of Miami, and how long we’ve been at Vous. Until today, I pronounced the ‘s,’ in ‘Vous’ so I knew this would go swimmingly.
They said Australia, the south of France, New Zealand, Pompano Beach, and plenty of reasons why, the coast the people, the food, the culture. They said their names and they said how long they served, two years, six months, five years, seventy dog years. I was surprised to hear how many waiters found Jesus. I’m not surprised that they’re his audience.
Lo and behold, it was my turn. Would I embarrass my friends and make an awful first impression as I always do? Hell would be a great answer. ‘I’m Ander. I’ve never been to Vous, until now. I’m a vou-rgin.’ I’m joking, I didn’t say that. I just said my name. ‘If I could live anywhere, it would be Spain. I won’t elaborate.’ It got some giggles due to its pithy nature, one-third the average run time of the other answers.
For the next hour, I took a sip every time a new person spoke. It was nice. I got to forget about my insecurities for a bit and just focus on theirs. Every idiosyncrasy captured my attention like the hors-d’oeuvres. One guy kept pulling his glasses up to his nose despite them never falling, another never closed his mouth, another couldn’t stay still, another was wearing a stupid hat. It was bliss.
Halfway through my thermos, we got to the sermon. Instead of college class intros, we did waterfall reading like elementary classes. It was all about Him and his prowess in math. At this point I was certain I was in school. They said, ‘He adds, subtracts, multiplies, but never divides,’ as I’ve been corrected in every conversation I’ve had since. He does it in ways no one understands. And it’s not His job to explain. This got me thinking. Where the fuck was He in my algebra and trigonometry classes? I failed so many questions by not showing my work. Every teacher said the same thing, ‘How did you get to the answer?’ I could’ve said God did it.
Once we were done with math, once my whisky had been subtracted, once the guy who met his girlfriend at church and made it his entire personality stopped preaching, I stumbled over other prayers on my way to the restroom and had the most existential piss of my life — more existential than when I saw seven of my dicks peeing into seven urinals on LSD — after which I made sure to tell the hosts about in vivid detail.
I returned to my assigned seat, elated, having finally released what everyone released tonight, but in liquid form. One of my two friends shared. I don’t remember the details, none of us ever do, but I do remember the feelings, the profound happiness and satisfaction that came with her being found and letting it all out. Her words poured out of her body with the same ease I only find while pouring myself a drink. I wish I could remember more, but if I didn’t travel through life with this much ignorance, I’d be trapped in the past as I’ve always been.
Suddenly, right as I zeroed in on someone else’s tick, the circle collapsed. Everyone got up and started embracing each other. Just like that, it was over. For two hours they emptied their hearts and all I did was watch. I turned to my friend for a debrief. She asked how I was doing, as she had done the whole night with little taps of reassurance, but this time with words. I spoke, as I’ve been told, loudly.
I don’t remember what I said. She does. A week later, she told me what I said.
‘I don’t belong here. This happiness. This light. I’ll just never get there.’ For once I saw the light that hugs people the same way the dark hugs me.
I’m somewhere between Hialeah and Hell, ignoring signs that bid me farewell because my tints are far too dim and I’m under the influence passing hookers and hotels, Cuban cigars and every smell more forgettable than every street or how I felt when we first meet.
I see a ring wrapped around her freshly painted fingers, delivered from a guy who needed a green card. He paid, but so did she, her with youth, unfortunately. She cried all night about not being a loving wife and not feeling sexy for too many nights. Can I blame her for taking a chance? She did more than I did to have love in her life.
I’m taking wrong turn after wrong turn just to spend a little more time with her, hoping there’s more than meets the eye, that only the wine is dry, that the blonde is just a dye, that she’s smarter than I remembered, that the thoughts in her head don’t die the moment they leave her.
We roll to a standstill, knowing traffic only kills those who drive alone staring at the wheel, not with a demoness, who only partly feels real, shaped like an hourglass, ready to spill.
She waved her red flags seven years too late. Every red light shined the evil in her face and turned any desire of putting her on a plate into a realization that I’ve made a mistake. Dessert can wait.
Dear little bird, lost in the dirt, floating in feelings that were once obscure, only found in the words pressed against my chest, cheek to cheek and neck to neck, like gliding to a feather, untethered, unencumbered, somehow able to shake and stir even if outnumbered.
You try to fly against me to where it’s safe, but I ground you in a cage painted with colors that are only pretty when seen from far away. The closer you get, more and more is chipped away, until every shade is gone, what’s right is wrong, and you sacrifice flight but the sky comes along.
Intimacy without touch is sometimes more than enough. Two little kisses can take a bite out of love, just as a hug can save a dove.
With only a look, I know that I’ve kissed you. As you get closer to Earth, it seems you bring heaven with you.
Knee high boots can’t cover up everything. She steps through the fire just to feel something. I asked God for thunder he only sent me lightning. What are the odds that it might strike me?
Finally, I tell myself, a glimmer of emotion that she won’t show someone else. Pent up aggression kept on the highest shelf, the lowest holds the boots, that’s how she runs through hell.
Her fingers, long and pretty, sharp and deadly, can hold a pencil, but not a conversation, what a pity. Even when she speaks there’s something she keeps from me. But the sound of lightning is better the silence of apathy.
Sexy indifference is sexier when spoken, because when all her thoughts start overflowing into passion and wishes and goals and ambitions, she acknowledges her pain grows with existence.
Maybe she’ll heal, maybe she’ll wither. She finds life to be better without emotions, I think it may be better with her.
