Ko Samui, Part 1

In Koh Samui, I play her an Argentinean tango. With the crashing of the ocean beneath our bungalow rising above the sharp chords, my fingers fly over the taut guitar strings. I watch her tilt her head back, her mouth slightly ajar and eyes closed, strands of hair matted to the sides of her face. Nadia has burn scars on her arm -- gashes where her skin has crumpled and puckered up into saggy folds after the angry blisters above her elbow scabbed over. It happened a couple weeks ago when she launched herself over a rolled up sheet doused in kerosene and set on fire to serve as a flaming jump rope. She caught her foot and fell on her side, singeing her arm and catching fire to her hair. She picked herself up quickly, rubbing the ends of her flaming hair hard between her hands to put out the fire before resuming her frenzied leaping. I lean over now and flick the scar gently with my tongue, tasting a hint of salt. “Love, you’re a fucking goddess,” I tell her, the words suspended in the air like the last notes of song.

            Nadia opens her eyes and sees me. Taking a long hit from the joint, she passes it to me, exhaling, looking up at the patchy clouds dampening the halo cast by a nearly full moon.  She has the skin of a snake charmer, olive gold and supple, marred only by the recent burn and a large, disarming upside down ‘V’ shaped tattoo of Alex from “A Clockwork Orange.” Alex wields a dagger in his fist and clutches an eyeball, right there on her thigh. When she flexes her quad, his face contorts so that one eye pops forward and he looks ready to spring out at you. Once I asked her about the tattoo and she said, “Evil is a sign of our freedom and we all have this urge
 to destroy just buried within us, waiting to come out.” The way she said it was haunting -- like it was the most natural thing to think of evil as you would a caged bird, beating its wings frantically on the inside of your chest, willing you to open the door so it can fly away.

            The beach and the ocean as far as we can see -- to where the water hits the sky and smudges into a seamless black sheet -- are ours. Nadia picks up an empty Coke can next to my feet, stubs out the joint, and stands up suddenly, arching her back and extending her arms above her head in a graceful stretch. She pitches the Coke can and we see it clink against the jutting rock face of either Hin Ta or Hin Rai. As Levi, the beefy German at “Yo’ Mama’s Beach Bar” once told us, these rocks are sacred. Island lore claims that an old Thai man and his wife were transformed into rocks after being tossed from their boat into the stormy sea, their quest to bring back a friend’s daughter to marry their son foiled by the fickle weather. The rocks, huddled together and bent over protectively, seem weary from the constant watch they keep. They are a testament to the parents’ hopes for their son’s happiness -- a sign of true intentions.

            “Fuck,” Nadia swears under her breath, “I think I just blasted that can at the old lady's head.”

            I shrug, though part of me feels a gnawing sense of dread that hurling a can at an old lady who’s watchful guidance represents love, could indeed bring bad things.
            “Let’s go get some more beer and stuff,” I suggest, as if our beating a hasty departure from the scene of the crime will save us. As I stand up, I realize that I am dizzy, and my headache amplifies the sound of the wind lashing through the palm trees above our bungalow, rustling like rain.

            I drive, revving the motorcycle with Nadia’s arms cinched tightly around my bare waist. The wind along the beach is strong and even though I’m not going fast, sand whips up from under the wheel and stings my face. Whatever the pot was laced with causes the ground to swell towards us, pulsing to form bulges that I swerve to avoid. Light from the lanterns hung in front of the bungalows cast long shadows on the beach. We drive, and the lights smear into a glowing trail, knit together by our passage.    

Mary, Mother of X

It was the kind of day where Mary just knew the nuns were off in their respective corners of the convent, having silent orgasms. There was never a better day then, to indulge in secret pleasures. On the Lord’s Sundays, she could almost see Him kick off His leather oxfords and swap them out for a pair of scuffy sandals. He’d order a round of His finest wine for Peter, Paul, and the rest of the fellas and the carrier angels would flit about and keep the glasses full all day. And since God made merry on His rest day, He forgave you for your trespasses even before you knew you were going to commit them.

Every time Mary sinned in the convent though, she felt a tiny prick of guilt. Even though she was only a postulant, doing and thinking bad things in a convent felt like peeing in a reservoir. Mary’s sin of choice, though relatively harmless, touched on all of the following: lust, theft, and gluttony. Sister Nina’s mother sent her a box of two-dozen chocolate covered salted caramels each month from Atlantic City, which drew Mary into Sister Nina’s room every Sunday afternoon while the nuns were all at their weekly meditation. She would tiptoe in and slide the right drawer of the desk out, freeing the box from its hiding place beneath a book of novenas. Sister Nina had an exacting method of devouring her sweets, an order which once discovered, Mary vigilantly observed. She worked her way around the diameter, counter-clockwise, moving to the center only after emptying all the outer slots. Mary helped herself to one a week, popping the whole thing in her mouth and relishing the way the sharp bite of sea salt drew out the sweet and bitter notes of chocolate, which melted into a firm buttery smoothness that coated her tongue.

Losing herself in a moment of indulgent reverie, Mary failed to hear Sister Nina open the door. Confusion crossed the woman’s face for a brief second, and Mary, startled, looked up to catch Sister Nina’s thick brow furrowing, before she registered the box of open chocolates on the desk. She hardened her jaw and scowled deeply. Several exaggerated strides closed the gap between them in a time that seemed impossibly quick for her heavy frame. Inches from Mary’s face, Sister Nina halted and Mary could feel her warm, shallow breath on her forehead. Her scent was both pungent and soft, cloves and baby powder. Mary, deeply resigned, willed herself to meet the Sister’s eyes. In the instance she did, she felt herself in the shadow of something – something concupiscent and base.

“I’m so sorry. Really. Deeply sorry.” Mary stammered. Ignoring her, Sister Nina reached for the box of chocolates and Mary, unable to move, watched as she fumbled with the lid, extracting another piece from the collection. Moistening the chocolate with deliberate, sensual flicks of her tongue, Sister Nina seized Mary’s hip with her free hand and pulled her even closer. Mary felt their hips kiss forcefully, and in vain, attempted to step back. With her other hand, Sister Nina drew the wet edge of the chocolate up and down the smooth, exposed skin directly under Mary’s collarbone, marking a shallow ‘v.’ Pushing down more forcefully as she retraced the ‘v,’ Sister Nina’s eyes locked onto Mary’s breasts. With revulsion, Mary observed as Sister Nina’s nostrils flared into a playful sneer and her brows arched slightly to betray a reckless lust. Mary felt a deep flush penetrating the surface of her skin, heat prickling from her cheeks to outer earlobes. Speech was suddenly inaccessible, corralled into submission by a tumorous bulge that Mary tried desperately to swallow. Mary pictured tiny tendrils extending from the soles of her feet, twisting and transforming, growing their sinuous network into broad, unwieldy roots that lock her down in a stoic paralysis. In that moment, the ‘v’ that Sister Nina had drawn, sunk heavy into her chest, ripping its way through her abdomen, displacing a flurry of ill-formed feelings – humiliation, guilt, and embarrassment – before settling itself around her pelvis as an anchor lodges into the sandy bed of an ocean floor. One singular and heavy truth remained: that this had been her fault.  

“Want another one, Mary?” Sister Nina taunted in a hoarse whisper. Mary’s shame, knotted deep in her gut started to unravel, clawing its way up blindly, stabbing her hard, as it travelled to her throat. In that protracted minute, the cascading white folds of the Sister’s habit and the rosary around her neck came into stark relief. Mary felt an inexplicable, growing desire to finger the hard beads, like she did each night, offering up fervent Hail Marys as ammunition for the angel on her right, so that he might triumph over the devil on her left. Her gaze fixed on the roughly hewn Jesus at the bottom of the necklace. Guided by some feral, protective instinct, Mary’s hand shot up. She yanked hard on the string of beads, deftly freeing the faceless Christ. 

Wives and Goats

Two goats and a three-legged sheep dog. That is my sister’s final worth – or rather, all my family can afford to give a man who we expect will bring nothing but disgrace to our name. Masi, the dog, is our most prized possession – the family’s favorite child. One day, she came hobbling through the tall grass, up to my abulita as she was hanging my father’s shirts out in the back garden. Since that day, she has been my abulita’s constant companion, and it seems impossible that her loyalties could shift as a result of being part of a dowry. I can imagine her howling, tugging at her chain, sorrowful and lost.

The groom, Humberto’s reputation as a man whose reason is tarnished by the spirits is well-established. I still see him, hauling a cart full of squash to the marketplace early one morning, pausing every few moments to take swigs from a large flask at his hip. Some furtive movement causes his donkey to startle and lurch backwards. Humberto looks bewildered for half a second, but wastes no time in drawing his whip. And without any regard for the crowds beginning to gather at the vegetable stalls outside the tented marketplace, he lashes the donkey over and over. Raising the whip high, he brings it down with a harsh crack on the donkey’s skull until the poor shrieking beast crumples to the ground, blood gushing through its bristly mane. With wild eyes staring off into the distance and spirits on his breath, Humberto unsteadily dismounts.  He reaches for the brim of his straw hat and with a small flourish, tips his hat off to us, revealing a ruddy face. Fat lips pursed in a tight line, he walks off, leaving the beast to draw its last breaths with the sun beating down on a growing pool of red and flies humming in its still-twitching ears.

I sit now, waiting for the church bells to chime high noon. At this point, Cousin Renaldo will come to lead me, along with the rest of the wedding party, to the church, where we will stand at the whitewashed stairs awaiting the arrival of our sister, veiled and humbled.  The room is stiflingly hot and the rays of sun dancing on my back from the window behind do not help. I can feel Mariana’s knobby knees through her crinoline dress, as she rocks herself back and forth. She is muttering the rosary under her breath, and I think to myself that if the Virgin Mary has been absent for so long, it is unlikely that she will swoop in now and decide to intercede. Cousin Monica and my younger sister, Beatriz, take long audible draws from their cigarettes, punctuated by occasional coughs. Our abulita took us aside this morning and firmly pressed the cigarettes into our palms, informing us in a hoarse whisper that she had removed the supply that my father carefully guards in the front pocket of his overalls. She tells us this is something to soothe the nerves, and in this small, covert gesture she makes us co-conspirators to her unease.

Jose lurks in the doorway, unsure of whether to cross into a territory that is so clearly the realm of females. He fumbles with his camera, fat fingers focused on teasing out a length of film, shakily guiding its delicate edges into place. I see his weight shift and sag against the doorframe. Dark pools of sweat spill out from under his armpits, seeping beneath his suspenders, creeping across his chest. He smells faintly of cigars, which I distinguish even through the sharper and more immediate smell of the cigarettes. I hear him panting in the heavy silence. Each breath is laborious, and the large round mole above the corner of his mouth protrudes out and recedes rhythmically, so he resembles a bloated poisonous toad preparing itself for battle. We do not want our picture taken and that much is clear. We do not want for this moment, captured on film, to toss a noose around us and in its vice-like grip, anchor us to a singular, bleak reality. Instead, we want for this day to fade, raw edges rendered smooth, gracefully receding, as lights in the theater before a show. 

Naked Party

Being in a corner, he’s told you, makes him feel safe, like you can’t shoot him without his seeing you. You’ve always marveled at his enthusiastic insistence that he’d rather look death in the eye than have it sneak up and take him down when he’s least expecting it.

Jules isn’t even close, and there are enough people between you, the pool, and the Clubhouse for him to have to strain to find you. But you know he’s there. Even before you make eye contact, you can feel a stare, like the soft tickling flurry of tiny ant feet navigating the fine hairs on your arm. And you look only to confirm what you already know – yes, there’s an ant, and yeah, he’s looking. He’s standing on one leg, other leg bent, sneaker leaning against the wall, making sure that wall’s still there to protect him. You watch his head tilt back and you see him laugh, mouth slightly ajar as if he’s catching the punch-line in the back of his throat. Even as you look away, you know he is laughing at his own joke, probably in the company of some hot chick who’s laughing with him. She’d be brunette – long, straight hair – because he can’t stand blondes, who are, in his opinion, “super dumb,” and curly hair “reminds him of pubes.” You don’t even have to look and you know he’s got an open can of Beast, that cheap beer he lugs to every party you guys have ever gone to – even the dinner party your prof threw at his house on Faculty Row. Jules probably recognized you by the way you are leaning over onto the bar, throwing your entire body weight on your elbows, as you hoist yourself up on tippy-toes waiting for the bartender to make your drink.

And you are both there wearing the exact same thing you had on the last time you saw each other. Nothing, that is. Sounds like something rhetorical your mother might ask you as you try to leave the house: “Hey, just because everyone else is walking around naked, are you going to do it too?” In this moment, the answer is ‘yes.’ And in this moment, the moment you realize Jules has seen you, you decide, “It sucked,” is going to be your understated, pithy summation, when you tell your friends how awkward it was to see your ex at the Alpha Chi “birthday-suit-formal.”

Before your last flight home to Atlanta, you leafed through some trashy fashion magazine at one of the newsstands. A sociological study, you reason. The beauty editor of this magazine tells you to ask yourself when you’re in doubt over an outfit, “Would I want my ex to see me in this?” She says, “If not, I think you have your answer.” You mulled this over, and at the time, you thought, sure. Now you ask yourself, “Would I want my ex to see me wearing nothing?” There, as you look down and contemplate that little protruding roll right below your bellybutton – the one Jules always called “your pooch” – you have your answer. You are most definitely underdressed.

It’s taken a good couple hours for you to stop sucking in your stomach and scrunching your elbows into your sides to accentuate your cleavage. As you turn around and ease away from the bar, bodies part, forming a channel that leads you in a direction away from Jules. You discover that people – especially the ones new to this scene -- give you more space. They stand about 4 feet away when you’re talking, rather than the usual arm’s length. You scan the scene for your roommate, Laura. Before arriving, you’d made a pact not to abandon each other. By the pool, girls and guys are sitting with their feet dangling in the water, sipping cocktails or beer. You recognize that girl at the shallow end, the one who just ducked under. She’s in your Lit class and you try not to stare, but as she emerges, you notice that her left breast hangs way lower than her right. Near the clubhouse, there’s a giant penis-shaped ice luge. One of the Alpha Chi brothers is pouring a bottle of Smirnoff at the top, unabashedly checking out the lithe little blonde with blue eyeshadow and sparkly silver chandelier earrings, kneeling at the edge of the table, with her lips pressed to the icy tip. Still no sign of Laura. Pretending everything’s normal makes your head hurt. It seems the less you wear, the more uncomfortable people are about standing close to you or talking about the things that matter. Don a fuzzy duck suit, you think bitterly, and everyone wants a hug.

As you make your way behind the ice luge, away from the clubhouse, skirting around the edge of the pool, you find yourself rehearsing a what-if-you-run-into-Jules scenario in your mind. You will coolly ask him about his architecture school apps or his recent trombone fetish. But asking about the latter would let him know you’ve been stalking the pics of his new band on Facebook. Really, it doesn’t matter what you say; you know you will be so focused on trying to read his eyes, trying to figure out what he remembers and what he has chosen to forget. You have this feeling that bodies don’t forget, that they remember the way they’re supposed to slide into each other, which limbs go over and which fold under. Your knees find the cushy bits on your partner’s flanks and your head steers straight for soft part on his chest, there, under the collarbone, next to the sternum.

You remember the last time you are with Jules, both of you lying naked in dark on a pile of unlaunched accusations. His nakedness is nothing personal; he’s just hot. Even in the dead of winter, he sleeps naked with the covers at his feet. He is curled up on his side, one hand tucked beneath his chin and the other under his pillow. His back is towards you and you are spooning your pillow, instead of him. You get out of bed, pretend you need a glass of water, then come back and sit on his side of the bed, at once determined and vulnerable. You were right and he’s not asleep. But he stares straight ahead, not even at your thighs right in front of his face. He refuses to look up and he refuses to touch you even though you’re willing it, and you’re naked, and you’re there. You reach for the arm tucked under his chin and with two fingers, you gently stroke his underarm, teasing that part between the wrist and elbow – the part you know drives him crazy. Still not looking, he registers your touch by stiffening; he continues to stare, unflinching, at something he can see and you can’t. When he closes his eyes, you get up quickly and leave because you don’t want him to see you cry.  

Hate greets you like an old friend, scooping you up in a big hug and wrapping his heavy wool jacket of resentment around your shoulders to warm you up inside. You think, how can Hate be bad, when he’s so comfortable, so easy to be around, and so dependable? You finish your drink and set the glass down on a table wedged between two pool lounge chairs. But as you turn around, Jules is standing there. Not there there in the corner, but here there, looking at you, naked.

Tiny

They call her Tiny because she was a preemie. When her mother tells the story of her painful birth – the 30 hours of contractions, the midwife who, in desperation, jumped on her chest, repeatedly throwing her weight below Tiny’s mother’s ribcage to induce contractions – Tiny shuffles her feet apologetically and looks down, refusing to meet her mother’s eyes. There is a photo of Tiny as a baby on top of the mantle, a shrimplike 2 pound alien form -- more diaper mass than child – stretched out awkwardly on a sheet of dancing pastel elephants. A shock of wispy black hair fans out from beneath a pink knit beanie, but any facial expression is obscured by the labyrinth of tubes taped to her cheeks, protruding from her nose and mouth. Her eyes are pinched shut in two faint U-shaped crescents. All that's visible of Tiny’s mother is her hand, reaching into the incubator and hovering gently above Tiny’s belly, pointer finger outstretched, willing for Tiny to grab on. Tiny, obedient even at 32 weeks, is clutching her mother’s fingertip, her whole hand barely covering a fingernail.

Tiny’s mother keeps the photo displayed prominently because she insists that the intense labor of giving Tiny life is her proudest accomplishment. She also likes to remind Tiny of her earliest and first connection, this unbreakable bond between mother and daughter -- gratitude realized even before it is comprehended. When Tiny looks at this helpless version of herself, she feels pity for this alien creature that, having arrived at the wrong time, looks so out of place in its surroundings.

This feeling of having arrived at the wrong time and being ill equipped for all the places she finds herself has followed Tiny throughout her life. It’s a shadow that she feels connected to the bottoms of her feet, which anchor her to another place. Sometimes she sneaks a wary glance over her shoulder and she can see the shadow tailing her, twisting itself into grotesque heights, dark, menacing, and ready to consume her.