Maudlin week part #7: We’ve been here before and it’s all meta.

I leave Manotas by the bar. He can manage the drunken revelers with the premixed drinks I’ve left him, and if not, he’s clever enough to do his own drinks and keep ’em inebriated.

Jess hasn’t been around for a while and she wants to talk. We find a spot and it’s a wonderful view. The walk up the hill on this dang street was murder, especially carrying all them alcohol bottles, but the view is worth it.

Jess smiles and shows me her mauve and purple boots. They have cool flowers imprinted on them. Magnolias and geraniums, I think? I’m terrible at garden stuff, man.

“How you been?” she asks. “You’ve gone poof and disappeared.”

“I’m okay” I lie “just relishing unemployment. Well, sub-employment. I still do the odd html stuff here and there, maybe a flash bit for a company or for students. Not much but enough to get by.”

“I see.”

We click shoes together and take a photograph with the impressive view of Mexico City. Then I try a photo of just the city lights, and I know it’ll be a mess that no photoshop skills can fix.

“Are you still writing?”

“Yeah. Too many ideas and I’ve got the time to do so now. Are you still drawing?”

“Daily.”

“Can I see any drawings any time soon?”

“Not really.”

“That’s okay. As long as you don’t ask for my writing.”

“I won’t, don’t worry.”

“Ooh, harsh.”

She sticks her tongue out and drinks from the solo cup. I can’t remember which cocktail I made for her, but a couple of her friends asked for a Swirling Eye-Opener and probably will regret it tomorrow. Gin and vodka are a force to be reckoned.

“Tell me a story, Sam.”

“Oh, man, let me think. Hey, do you remember the song 3 AM by Matchbox 20?”

“You know I’m terrible with song titles.”

“The one with the video where the guy is a little lonely and whiny.”

“You haven’t narrowed it down.”

“Well, that song is a crucial plot point for a novel I’m writing.”

“Oh?”

“Yeah, it’s about this guy, Tocayo, who moves to Guadalajara to run away from a problem in Tampico.”

“It’s that from your other book?”

“It’s mentioned only on the other one, yes.”

“And what happens?”

“Well, he’s kinda a well to do dude with terrible ideas and life sorts him out. His car ends up breaking down in the highway by the end of the novel. It was his most precious thing and he’s lost it all by then and realises he must go to Tampico and sort everything out, five years after it happened.”

“I see. You’re going to link it to another book, right?”

“Yeah, the next one.”

“You’re hoping too much from your readers, bud.”

I agree and we go quiet for a few moments.

“Have you been up here before?”

“Uhm, I have.”

“For a Buckyparty like tonight’s?”

“No, ahm, you see. Remember that summer when I gave you a kangaroo beanie baby?”

“Yeah?”

“On the spring I kinda had something with someone, and wouldn’t you know it? She used to live on this very street, a few atmospheric layers below us.”

“Oh, maybe Bucky knows her? Should we call her?”

“No” I exaggerate my response and she sticks her tongue again.

We hug for a moment and continue to enjoy the warm April night. I look behind us, the white cement railings  look like pawn pieces to me. Solemnly caring for us. The white and red house, same colour scheme as mine.

I see Jess and the bouse. The lights paint a golden halo around her.

In another life, in another world.

“Are you going to Tampico on the summer?”

“I don’t think so, Jess. Haven’t been there for a while.”

“No? Anything bad?”

“I think I overplayed my time there and it’s time to discover new places. Familiarity breeds contempt, you know?”

I don’t mention anything about Sonia as I don’t want to ruin Jess’ night. She’s having fun. Haven’t seen her smile like this in ages.

“Something happened, right?”

“Huh?”

“In Tampico?”

“No, nothing bad. At least, not to me.”

“Oh?”

“A friend of mine got beat at a breakwater, almost got chucked into the sea.”

“Really? Is he okay?”

“He really thought about diving towards the Pánuco river, but thankfully a cop was following the dudes that beat him and gave chase. Another cop came by and offered first aid. My friend decided to never go back to Tampico after this.”

“Oh, wow.”

She doesn’t notice I’ve bit the side of my solo cup. I think.

“Is your friend okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, it was just bad choices catching up with him. I guess we all gotta pay the fiddler from time to time.”

She agrees.

“We’re almost in our thirties.”

“Yep. So?”

“A lot of our friends are starting families.“

“Yes, they do.”

C’mon, Sam.

“It’s something to think.” I retreat, as always.

She sighs and throws out the ice from the drink. She really doesn’t like cold stuff.

“I’m just worrying about time running out. I don’t know how things will be five or ten years from now.”

“You worry too much, you’re gonna go grey before your time.”

“I already have the one grey hair, Jess. Since I’m twenty two. And it’s the only one. It’s kinda funny. This girl I knew, Sonia, said it looked good on me. Never plucked it because of that.”

“Do I know her?”

“No, she’s from Tampico.”

“And is she the reason for you to avoid the place?”

“No, not at all.”

Jess goes silent, sighs and looks away. I get the hint.

“Things didn’t work out.”

“Oh.”

She’s ready for the tea.

“Too much emotional baggage and I didn’t know how to deal with it. I think her depression is much worse than she shows and I’m afraid she’s gonna do something bad.”

“Is she getting help?”

“She is now, but it took a lot of convincing from friends and from her grandmother. She eventually cut ties with a lot of her friends and never returned calls. Like Nora, her best friend.”

“And you.”

“Yeah, I was one of the casualties.”

Her tone changes.

“Are you okay?”

“I try, but, I dunno, I feel like I haven’t been happy for a long while.”

Lenny Kravitz’s Believe plays on the stereo.

“What would make you happy?” she asks, her eyes fishing for the truth.

I panic.

“Are you okay?”

“Yeah, yeah, it’s the song.”

“Bad memories.”

“No, but in 1994, I went to Tampico in september for my cousin’s graduation.”

She looks at me.

The graduation was in the centre of Tampico. It was a cool affair. I remember I was sick with a stomach bug and my aunt Tatay opened the glove compartment from her truck and gave me a strange green pill. She told me to swallow it with no water and to not consume anything at all for four hours. It was sweltering everywhere and thankfully, the graduation place had central air conditioning. It was an ok party, but both my mom and my aunt insisted that “a girl with babuchas” was eyeing me up from another table. I tried looking back at her, but we never shared our gaze. I think they were having a laugh at my expense. Or my timing was terrible. Anyways, that’s the real story: my mom and my aunt convincing me that someone was eyeing me up, and me never getting any concrete evidence, therefore thinking it was a joke or they were trying to help my self-esteem. And what the hell is a babucha anyways?

That’s not the story I tell Jess, by the way. Sorry to waste your time, dear reader. What I tell her is:

“I went to a graduation in Tampico in september of ’94”

“You already said that, Sam.”

“Oh, editing error. Sorry.”

“Huh?”

“Nevermind. So there I was, quick trip to Tampico and I scurried to the city centre in the morning, do my usual routine of videogames at two arcades in Tampico’s main plaza, then a trip to the small mall in Avenida Hidalgo. I was playing The Avengers videogame at Chispas in Tampico and on the speakers they had Lenny Kravitz. I was in the space level before you go to Red Skull’s base and Believe was right there. I managed to finish the game, and beat Red Skull. And afterwards, I played Golden Axe: the revenge of Death Adder at Tres Arcos mall and also won!”

Jess blinks twice and drinks from the cup the last gulps of the drink.

“I’ve never won two arcades in one day. Then I went to the graduation.”

“Anything good there?”

The girl with the babuchas, with the same look as the girl from Counting Crows’ Mr. Jones video.

“Not really, just a graduation.”

“Really?”

She did look at me, and realising that I wouldn’t stand up and ask her for a dance, she went back to her drink. I still wonder what a babucha is.

“Really, Jess, nothing to tell a good story about.”

“Oh, baloney”

“What?”

“That’s your story? Just a videogame thing?”

“I’m kinda boring, Jess.”

She doesn’t reply and sighs. She excuses herself and says she’s going back to the party. I continue to ponder, sat on the grass.

Man, I hope no one reading this thinks I’m needy. Or whiny.

Then I feel a weird movement on my pocket. Oh, no. A rat? A mouse?

-“Buddy boy, you are an idiot” a lively plushie cow pops out of my pocket and I put it away quickly.

What in tarnation?

-You’ll get it in 18 years, ok?- the cow pops up from my pocket again, and I pushit back, with a loud “oof!” moaned.

I sniff my solo cup. Man, that was a strong drink.

-Sam J. Valdés López