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Seven

It was far too early. For me, anyway. I'm hardly ever awake at that hour but I wanted that moment. I needed it. Where night meets day and dawn breaks with a delicate promise of sunlit, peach-colored hope.

I also didn't want to run into anyone.

I wanted space to mourn in silence. Peace to reminisce in solitude. I never was one for socializing, especially not at cemeteries.

I trudged through the dew-soaked grass with my orange hood up and a box of Kleenex under my arm. I sat down, impervious to the damp quickly seeping into my jeans. The moisture wetting my face was palpable though. I stared off into the distance as if to avoid making eye contact and having to offer the first word.

It was getting lighter.

Hi...

Starting is always the hardest part.

The tears were falling faster and soon with them a stream of words.

I miss you. I...I'm sorry I almost forgot. It took me a whole hour after I woke up yesterday to remember what day it was. For what it's worth, February 23rd is still the worst day of the year every year. That never changes. I couldn't remember if you liked sunflowers. They were the closest to orange I could find. Not that we ever talked about flowers. We were too busy fording rivers and warding off dysentery and adventuring our way to Oregon. Oh, and giving our families outrageous names worthy of the wild, wild west. And raiding our moms' secret cabinet stashes for after-school snacks. Some secret, huh? You were the best at wheedling change for vending machine sodas. Haha. Remember that time you told such a good joke even you yourself shot Sunkist out your nose?

I basked in the warmth of pleasant memories before they shortly faded into regrets.

Like the time I threw a 13-year-old tantrum because I didn't want to go your birthday party at the bowling alley because R would be there and she had an obnoxiously big mouth but my mom was making me go or else.

Some things never change. Parties just aren't my scene. And mother always knows.

Or sitting on cold hospital linoleum trying to imagine what you looked like with your entire chest split open and all your insides out for the world to see. Trying to picture which tube the nurse clamped wrong causing blood to suddenly spew everywhere...

The sun then peeked out, spreading a fuzzy blanket over my shoulders like a soft cashmere throw.

Thanks for the holding the rain this year. That would have been too much.

Stillness and nostalgia and presence lingered in the air. I sat for just a moment longer before easing my body into an upright position. I could hear a leaf blower start up not far off, the honk of a horn as the normal day took its place at the head of the line. The fragility of morning had broken and it was off to life as usual. Or something. I needed a shower.

It's been real, hermano. Hasta la próxima.

Poem About Morning - William Meredith

Whether it's sunny or not, it's sure
To be enormously complex—
Trees or streets outdoors, indoors whoever you share,
And yourself, thirsty, hungry, washing,
An attitude towards sex.
No wonder half of you wants to stay
With your head dark and wishing
Rather than take it all on again:
Weren't you duped yesterday?
Things are not orderly here, no matter what they say.

But the clock goes off, if you have a dog
It wags, if you get up now you'll be less
Late. Life is some kind of loathsome hag
Who is forever threatening to turn beautiful.
Now she gives you a quick toothpaste kiss
And puts a glass of cold cranberry juice,
Like a big fake garnet, in your hand.
Cranberry juice! You're lucky, on the whole,
But there is a great deal about it you don't understand.

Not Taken Far Enough

In the movie Taken, a retired Secret Service agent played by Liam Neeson encounters and handily overcomes inordinate obstacles to rescue his seventeen-year-old daughter kidnapped by Albanian human traffickers while on vacation in Paris. The lurid portrayal of the prostitution ring run by the Albanians and the vengeful torture exacted by Neeson's character are graphically illustrative. Quite frankly, I hated it.

But the regard of disgust and indignation in which I hold the film does not stem solely from its vividness. Rather, it is its raw reality that has me riled up. It was so real. If someone is sufficiently psychotic to invent these types of story lines and situations as mere entertainment, one would think there have to be many more individuals visionary enough to flesh out such schemes in real life. Isn't that usually the debate about violent video games anytime an adolescent killer shocks society with a school shooting? Semi-digression.

I know this situation began as reality first rather than originating as a blockbuster plot. Human trafficking is a very prescient issue forefronting today's worldwide injustices along with global poverty and inequality, etc. etc. So what makes me really angry is that the people who are so aware of these harsh realities consciously choose to invest millions of dollars and hours of their time to make fictional, dramatized accounts for the exclusive purpose of entertaining the American public.

America has come to prioritize and justify, and even glorify, paying already wealthy actors to take part in Hollywood corporations' money-bilking exploits instead of heeding the devastating knowledge and investing those plentiful resources and efforts to find solutions to combat the injustice.

Some argue that in many ways, advocacy is significantly more advantageous than one solitary ring bust or the rescue of a few fortunate victims however high-profile it results to be. I do not necesarily disagree with this claim (but a life saved is a life saved), but do denounce the majority of what Hollywood produces as advocacy. Even documentaries these days are dubious. Taken definitely does not qualify as an effort of information rather I see it is a facade for pure exploitation--Hollywood using this particular issue as a form of "shock and awe" entertainment. It was an intense action flick not meant to charm or romance or humor audiences but rather jolt them just enough to satiate their appetites but suspiciously not so much as to shake them into taking action, because let's face it, that just isn't comfortable and discomfort doesn't sell.

The movie didn't sell anyway (well, relatively. Its box office revenue was still $144,924,285--for a crappy movie!). It received terrible reviews and many viewers (of the few who saw the film) were dissatisfied. But of course, the dissatisfaction stemmed largely because the acting was deemed sub par and the ending anticlimactic, not because its very premises are morally wrong. I'd like to hope that most viewers' instincts cried dirty but chances are, most audiences left with a manifold lasting impression of the lacking resolution and the daughter's appallingly selfish behavior.

Women being brutally kidnapped, drugged, sold, and shamefully displayed for prostitution. Sure, it screams against moral code and common sense and hopefully is disturbing, but I'm betting after the requisite two hours, most went back to their comfortable lives, untouched by those harsh realities. True advocacy is educating people and providing them with information that most importantly, stirs them into productive action. This movie does nothing of the sort. Granted, that likely was not ever the intent of the producers.

But why not?

Mojito.

The apartment was trashed. Per usual. Disease-infused blue cushions were strewn about the ironically named living room, seeing as it was hardly ever livable. The dining table with its hideous vinyl yellow-orange tablecloth was filthy with sticky beers stains and other remains from the previous night's questionable activities. Shirtless white trash American boys milled about carelessly trailing ashes from their hand-rolled cigs of hash. Mulleted French disc jockeys came and went. Shrieking German could be heard from a room off the hallway. I casually took a few swigs of vodka alternated with sips of Fanta Limon, and then we were off.

The grafittied alleys echoed as the group tromped toward el estacio de sants, empty sound ricocheting off cobblestone and sheet metal. The metro station was no less eery. Dark. Deserted. Dank. Desperate.

The next few hours followed like a drunken stupor as our ragtag group wandered from city limit to city limit, club to club. Rejected at one for R's proletariat Converses. Bounced out of the other for being all around declasse. Scorned of entry at the next due to the dazed Dutchman, unfortunately ours, loping wildly about in a wasted frenzy. Our haggard bundle of grumbling frustrations finally stumbled on a building pulsing with a hypnotizing techno salsa beat. Giant black pillars of bouncers allowed us entrance with payment.

Thick smoke tinged by black light clouded the air, if you could even call it that. Rounds and rounds of salt, tequila, and lime cycled until everything was a hazy, heady mess. Sickened by the grinding chaos that presumed dance and the hard evidence being recorded in excess (I hope those photos burn in hell), I fought my way to the edge of the room. The fruits of my retreat: a stained cushion much like the ones we called furniture back at the flat. Dubious but I took it. I watched the group pair off. Two by two they backed into a corner up against the wall, sauntered to the bar for another round, descended on the leggy blonde Swedes.

I sat alone and tried to picture the world, the life I left behind. Sunshine yellow air, sandy beaches, a surfer boy. Buried in a throbbing crowd of inebriation six thousand miles away, I clung to the fading image of crashing waves and perfect sunsets. Suffocated by resurfaced memories and abandoned by the distracted group, I stumbled outside, choking on the crisp night air.

Four thirty am. No cell phone. No money. No working metro. No bus station nearby. No clue where in the city I had ended up. No idea how to get home.

I stood on that dim street corner attempting to make the most use of the light slivers from a solitary street lamp ten feet away. A shiver slid up my spine as a breeze rustled my silky shirt and lonesome stragglers stumbled lustily by, thinking everything of my unfortunately coincidental happenstance. A car sped by honking and catcalling as I hesitated on the sidewalk. Finally, a taxi slowed enough to notice my frantic wave. Carrer Bonaventura Polles porfa. He had no idea where the hell that was. After five long minutes of searching on a wrinkled map with no sign of recognition, I sighed resignedly. Just take me to the train station. I was anxious for the night to end.

The familiar hub loomed outside, and I hastily handed the driver the few crumpled bills and probably too many coins I had pulled earlier from a rando ATM a few blocks of wandering from the club. Still two miles to go before home. I lurked past abandoned construction sites, brushed past the grafitti faces and tin shed doors once more. This time the only echoes were that of my footsteps. I wound my keys around my finger, my eyes cautiously darting around, ready to strike if attacked. Made a right, made a right, took a left. Fumbled with a stubborn lock, wrestled a metal gate. Exhaustion crept up a slippery flight of stairs, and then finally, relief at long last crumpled onto the mold-encased bed.