Commitments

Andrew and his wife wait outside.  They wait on last call or a bad song to force out their friends.

A drunk woman eyes them.  She wears too much make up.  She stands away from the two of them - a satellite - but orbits closer for a better look.

The three of them talk.  The wife is the first to introduce herself.  She mentions how she can’t keep dancing, though she planned to.  More and more, the drunk woman squints at Andrew, trying to read an answer on his face.

Though the wife continues about the night she’s having, the drunk woman steers the conversation to Andrew’s hair.  She even goes so far as touching it.  Finally, the woman speaks her mind, “Honey, you got to choose one,” she tells Andrew, “You can’t do both half-assed.  You’re either all the way sexy, or you’re a dude.”

“Mm,” Andrew replies.

“I’m sorry.  I’m drunk.  Am I too in your face?”

“No.  But you’re getting there.”

“It’s just that, your hair is so long and pretty.  But you part it down the middle like a man.  You’ve got to commit, honey.”

Neither Andrew or his wife acknowledge the drunk woman after the comment.  When she leaves, Andrew tries to share a look of relief with his partner.  He rubs his wife’s shoulder - his fingers tipped in coral polish - and asks, “Are you tired?”

Visits

Sometimes, I’ll see him shift in my peripherals.  Always, he’ll lurk in a dark spot, then turn to air the moment I try to spot him.  In fact, I have no idea what he looks like.  I see the movement, but no actors.  I see the rustle, but no bodies.  Always ducking out of sight just in time.  I see the ripple, but no diver.

He drops in when he knows it’s inconvenient.  Like when I’m seeing a friend in an hour.  He wants to feel that he means more, so he times his visits to compete with my plans.  But sometimes, I don’t prefer him, like when he came to me during an acid trip.  I wasn’t in the mood to take him seriously; I wanted to enjoy the lights.  The next time I swallowed a tab, though, I trapped myself in my dull room, and he answered every problem to a story I was writing.

Most times, he’ll speak to me indirectly - the result of a Youtube misclick that leads to a lecture by Alan Watts.  He’ll reveal himself in the affirmation of a mentor, or the warning on a bottle of mayonnaise to stay cool, but never freeze.  He’ll tug my ear to a phrase, or he’ll make the print of a label so small, I have to hold it close.

Once, when my car broke down on the highway, no one would stop when I tried to flag for help.  But when I pushed my car, other drivers got out to push with me.  I think my muse operates the same way.

So I show up to the table everyday, set the cursor on a fresh page, and torment myself.  Sometimes, he’s kind enough to crack his knuckles and get me out of my mess.

Doldrums

Kevin digs at the ocean with the rudder.  He snapped it from the tiller while the sun was up.  He is wet past his forearms.

Nina sits at the bow of the boat, out of his way, with nothing in her hands to correct the circle Kevin spins them in.  She marvels quietly at the stars.  Rather than dwell on her hangover - embedded like an axe in her forehead - she fills her mind with memories of night sermons with her mother, how their church lit entire cases of candles along the pews.  The stars make Nina feel holy.

Earlier that day, after waking to empty sails that Kevin forgot to close, Nina paced the length of the boat - 20 feet, though she stretched it to hundreds - holding her phone out to get reception.  Fatigued, Nina shut the phone off at four percent and stashed it in her pocket.  She calmed and watched the sun set on the horizon.  Nina recognized how the water stilled to glass, how the ocean mirrored the sky so that every direction seemed a continuum instead of a boundary.  Rather than disappear behind a solid mass, the sun shut like an eye - first to oblong, then to almond, then to sleep.

Nina tried including Kevin on the spectacle.  Instead, he invested in flipping the boom back and forth to make enough wind to propel them.  All it did was force Nina to hold down her hair.

“Kevin,” she said, “You’re missing it.”

“I can figure this out,” he replied, panting, “I can get us out of here.”

“Kevin,” she said, “Look in front of you.”

He looked in despair at the sail.

“Kevin,” she said.

“Nina!” he snapped.  He knew he made a mistake.

Nina waited.  “Should I be helping?”

“Just keep the phone ready.”

As Kevin digs at the ocean - crude oil black, same as the night - his ripples shake the reflecting surface and return it to sea.  He misses the arrangement of his living room, his standing speakers propped in every corner - for immersive sound - and his high definition television - set to lifelike.  Exhausted, he begins to accept how far that room is.  He sits with Nina on the bow.

“Any service?” Kevin asks.

Nina shrugs.  “It was no service then, it will be no service the three feet you paddled us, and it will still be no service over there.”  She points at the closest ripple, made visible by the network of stars overhead.

“Then what do we do?” Kevin asks.

“Look.”

As the ripple echoes to its end, the mirror returns, and the sky joins the sea to suspend the boat in cosmos.  Like floating through the stars, Kevin cannot believe it.  He thought he understood panoramas from the fifty five inches of screen in his living room.  He sees now he’d been cheated, how none of that compares to finding this center of the universe.

As Kevin drifts into a trance, Nina suggests, “I guess we could have a look at the phone, but it will probably drop us another percent.  Should we save it for later?”  

Kevin, slow in hearing her, weighs their options.  Rather than answer, he inches toward the edge of the bow, but stops before seeing his reflection.

From the edge, and from any direction he chooses, the stars offer to swallow him whole.

“Play a song,” he says.

Funeral Photos

For every wake I've attended, I found a collage of the deceased's photos proudly displayed by the casket. They got me thinking of what my highlight still-frames would be, what it would take for a new photo to muscle out some of my existing lineup.

Over the weekend, I took a picture that will display at my funeral. It will find its place alongside a shot of me free-falling and posing as a prima donna. If the curators I leave behind decide on chronological order, it will follow me sitting fireside by a snowbank, drink in hand, smiling to someone offscreen.

I gauge a picture’s candidacy by likes on social media. To have potential, a picture needs 30 affirmations from my circle of friends. Over 50, and the image may as well be gold bordered with the words “In loving memory of,” hanging overhead.

General photos, I prepare for. I round my eyes out to avoid them looking beady. I hug my top lip to my tooth line to hide my deep set gums. These precautions help in looking satisfactory. Funeral photos, however, abide by a contrary set of principles. Those times, the wind seems to move a certain speed, or the sun seems to hit a certain angle, because my eyes never look how I want them to. My mouth, too, misses cues; a half inch or more of pink membrane shows along my lip, emphasizing my crooked teeth. In fact, the picture from the weekend - my most well received photo, and therefore, my most funeral worthy - shows me with my eyes shut and my lips pulled up to a pencil line. Though I try to prevent this version of myself for the camera, this eye squinting, gum showing character will be my epitaph.

The No Clothes State

The sunscreen takeover began in aisle seven of Health & Beauty. Following California's declaration as a No Clothes State, off-brand sunscreens cropped up to invade the store shelves. The lotions cleared out first, dead stock once UV skincare doubled as moisturizer.

Soon, the entire aisle showcased sunscreens, segregated like liquors by color, type, and strength - cream versus copper, scented or not, SPF numbers climbing by the tens.

Those who refused the product stood out with their pink complexion, rubbed raw by daytime rays. In a marketing ploy, Banana Boat featured commercials mocking toasted skin, choosing unattractive actors to play unwanted hermits. The strategy failed, however, and what came instead was a statewide boycott of the brand.

Consumer analysts - floored by California’s solidarity - enlisted reporters to take to the streets and hear from the people. One such woman offered, “We’re vulnerable enough as it is.”

Inside the store, the sunscreens spread into neighboring aisles, claiming mascara racks and lip gloss displays. Once an antiperspirant formula developed, the sunscreens annexed an entire department, but even the expanded floorspace fell short to the demand. With no other sales space, specialty sunscreens found placement behind the pharmaceutical window, muscling out the anti-depressants.

Novel Chapter

It started with Baboy, which is Tagalog for ‘pig.’  At the time, I wobbled with my weight, and of the few things that fit me was that nickname.  Other kids loved its sound so much, they made it a game to blend it into pop music.  People said it to feel their lips smack between syllables, like a basketball coming to rest: Ba, boy, baboy, bababoy, boy.  Even when shouted, people played with which half to stress: BA-Aboy, or BabO-OY. Remy never could decide, so he bounced between both.

At Filipino parties, it’s custom to serve lechon - a whole pig skewered over a fire spit, roasted until the skin crusts a quarter inch through. Once, when we finished our plates in the kids’ room, Remy faked starving for more lechon.  Instead of leaving the room to get a second helping, he poked me with his fork and dragged it along my shoulder.  He brought it to his lips, rolled his eyes, and said, “Wow.  We should’ve just cooked you.”  The kids snickered, and Remy smiled at them.  “Hey, Baboy, I have a serious question.”  He nudged me with his elbow.  “Come on, it’s serious.”

“What are you going to ask him?” some kid said.  Remy stooped with his hands on his knees, met me where I sat.  “How’d you get to be so fat?  My mom says there’s lots of reasons people are fat.  She says it could be jean etiquette, but most times it’s cause the person eats the wrong thing - like really oily food - and the person eats too much of it.  Like, way more than he needs to live.”  He poked my belly, grinned at how his finger indented. “So, which one’s your reason?  Hm?”  Other kids joined in, “Yeah, which one is it; I bet it’s the oily food one, What’s jean etiquette; Tell us, please?”

How it turned into ‘Playdough,’ my memory blurs.  But play dough can be molded into balls, into lumps, and into rolls.  It can be squashed into pancakes and indented with just a finger.  I forget the reasons surrounding it, but Remy made sure that name stuck.

Misused

“It’s a strange phenomena,” I told her, “People who date out of comfort.”

“You mean phenomenon?” she asked, “Just the one event, right? Because ‘phenomena’ is plural.”

Once, I tried sharing how I grew up with cystic acne. I pointed to how the legions would spread from my chin to my temple.

“Lesions,” she told me, “A legion is a militant group. Usually, overwhelming in number.”

I replied, “But that’s exactly what I mean.”

She nodded. “Yes, but it’s still wrong.”

Another time, I confided my wish to be more clairvoyant, then she stopped me to say that the word in that form is supernatural. To be clairvoyant is to be prophetic, to have biblical powers. To want clairvoyance, though, is perfectly acceptable. So instead, I should start saying that I want clairvoyance.

“Sometimes,” she said, “I think you use words that you only kind of know. You probably shouldn’t do that. Clarity is key.”

On another lazy Saturday, we lounged on her bed. I whispered, “I’m never so mellow than when we’re laying together.”

“Lying,” she said, “The word you want, is lying.”