the smoke moves slowly, cigarette in her mouth, pilfering pink health from my lungs, hazy, circling, first around my lips then floating abstractedly up around my forehead and then off in the direction of the bar. everything is mahogany. the club is mahogany. the bar is mahogany. the bar is split in the middle. a space for the server to enter and exit. the jazz trio is straight down the barrel of the club at the opposite end, tucked into a corner, be-bopin' along, with amps and wires and such, all bunched up. sweet stand-up bass lines become the central force of the sound in my ears. i'm listening to the phat plucking of that sweet bass. in the background the drummer scrapes the snare with a brush and the electric guitarist/occasional vocalist is popping one dimensional guitar notes floating along the bass man's river. i'm in the boat, too. there's no room in the club. we're all stacked in, sitting at tables scrunched together, maybe 50 of us, sitting along the wall of the long, skinny club, just enough room for the black woman with blond curls to snake down the line, taking drink orders. I want a Jameson, I want a whiskey on the rocks, she's going to bring it to me after she asks about 25 other people what they want and then asks the white boy bartender with a hipster fedora and a black button down to make all the drinks, then stacks the drinks on her round, mahogany colored plastic tray with the cork bottom for placing the drinks, then delivers everyone else's drinks, then puts down a napkin, then places my Jameson on the napkin. she's attractive this woman bringing me a Jameson. she's got a cute snap to her, slight of build, with strong, light arms, nicely defined.
the woman i'm with is another story. she's a mess, but i'm in love with her too. fuck, i'm in love with all of them. cassandra, my date for the evening, struggles to remain focused on the music. actually, she fails. there is no struggle. she fidgets, she moves in her chair, she's making eyes (like creating them anew) with this african-american man wearing a "kiss me, i'm irish" shirt, black with with white letters, and an irish old guy hat--you know, the kind that are flat and snap in front. this guy's sitting behind us, and cassandra, my white cleopatra, is communicating nonviolently and without speech in a manner that oozes fuck me messages with this very handsome man. he's old enough to know better than to be sharing eyes with another man's date. he's probably 38 and doesn't give a shit about me, doesn't give a shit that cassandra is 19. fuck, i'm only 24. i don't know how to handle this woman. a contemporary jazz club on Bleecker Street sounded like the right way to go after a day chalk full of fucking. but i'm Mexican-American, from California for Christ's sake, and these east coast love affairs still don't make any sense to me.
when i'm home alone, in my apartment in Brooklyn, i'm listening to this chic i saw perform at an open mic the other night. i downloaded her ep on iTunes. i'm listening to one of her simple, beautiful love songs.
"it seems these days the best of ways to love someone is to flat out say you have my heart for now and always"
if you let the love loose, it will grow and find the fecund fortunes, and let the people blessed with the love be free. that's all we want, right? my chicano family members would start talking about Cesar Chavez y Si Se Puede! and all that bullshit, but I went to Brown and now I'm at NYU. What the FUCK does Cesar Chavez have to do with me? Everything, I know. But still. it's a stretch, especially at this bar with cassandra and her white girl ticks and all the bullshit sad eyes makeup. you're not sad cassandra, you're white. with your white stretchy shirt looping dangerously around your breasts. it's too much. put on a fucking hoodie, cause you sure as hell ain't gonna get shot. that black dude might buy you a shot, but that's altogether different.
no quiero ser un otro. quiero ser lo todo.
hey-Suess! i should really introduce myself if i'm going to be complaining to you about my love problems. I don't even speak spanish. I mean i speak spanish, but not really. My name is Henry, Enrique to my parents, but Henry to cassandra and her drama (queen) friends at the new school. she's an actress. that's original. i know, but we all want that too. don't we.
with love in imperfection,
Anthony
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