Dead Awake: The Last Crossing (15 page)

Sweet little Noelia, she was
pointing it out to me. “El Tupa, says we are very good for each
other.” I looked to her and laughed with delight. She was
delicious.

“
Yes he does, my Noelita.
You’ll be mine forever, won’t you?”

“
Yes, of course I will, I’m
so happy now. You made it so right for us.” And with that we danced
on and everyone clapped their hands for us.

“
A toast to the great
couple!” yelled Jose, and everyone raised their glass to bless us
in our union. If that wasn’t the wedding, it ought to have been,
for it was the greatest day of my life. As I said before, it was my
“good day,” the best day of my life. Her eyes were looking into
mine, sparkling with love for me, the luckiest man alive. What
could be better in life than to have the love from a goddess? I
found out nothing could, in all of life.

We celebrated until dusk and
I danced all night with “My Noelia”. It was an “eye-opener” to see
her dancing as she did. She never got tired and neither did I.
Everyone took a turn dancing with Noelia: Her father, her uncles,
the neighbors, the further down the way neighbors, her brothers,
and even her mother; which was a good laugh for all to see. She
must have danced even more than I did, and I never stopped – except
for that time when we both snuck back to kiss, away from all the
hullabaloo. The whole night was one big “great,” never to be
surpassed in all my expectations, with exception of our wedding. I
couldn’t wait for it! But every moment, even waiting, while with
her, was in itself momentous and spent in the lap of
honey-luxury.

That night was like a dream,
except that I remember it in detail. Never had my heart ran faster
to catch each event as if it were the last. Everything to be
recorded with such accuracy, kept for me to remember.

I walked to my room that
morning a changed man. I was engaged now – what a thrill! My blood
and heart leapt inside me and everything I felt and saw told me
that I’d done well, more than well, for it was the best decision
I’d taken in my whole life! It was a good feeling: knowing, without
doubt, that there could be no better place nor better thing I could
be doing. I was in the right circumstance and at the right time,
and best of all, I was the right man. I’d be married!

Approaching my door, I saw
no reason to assume I’d find no note. It had been a day so full of
everything, that it placed no doubt as I arrived... and there it
was-stuck as always on my door.

STAR-MOON-SKY

Beginning where the
landscape blooms and there is life from the creation

Is there a man who does the
work?

The palm that stretches, and
there is Light.

Then breath escapes, and man comes close to understand.

Where there is warmth, and the colors melt

Where there is sun, but at
last gone down

And there is more than can be felt

Beginning where the sky
meets the moon

There is a blaze from Heaven... Sun

There is a blush from
Earth... Moon

And in the far – a
star

A sculpture of peace and
skill

Eye cannot reflect

Trinity’s glow that sun
makes whole

Moments for a witness to stop for star and sky

Where the dawn wrapped us in light in the hand of
God

That paints the Earth to let
men see on high

CHAPTER 9

Melancholy Again

The next day with my Noelia
was heaven. We were together from the afternoon until the night.
(Both of us had slept until noon, because of the celebration the
night before). It was a harmonious time, well spent with the one I
loved. Nothing on earth could have made it better, except, of
course, the actual marriage.

So as far as happiness goes,
I was happier than I’d ever been. I got to my bed, that night, and
slept like a lamb, still held by the warmth of her arms, even
though she slept at her house and I was in my room. With love and
with the peace that comes by it, there is no distance while it is
right.

It is funny how things can
turn suddenly and events can make what’s good fade into the
background...

The next day I also spent
with her. Early that morning we got together, fully rested from the
lost sleep and spent the better part of the day together. We went
on a walk along the Oceanside, wetting our feet in the tide, then
we ate some mangos from an enormous tree that leaned over the edge
of a small rocky cleft. She talked me into climbing the tree and
when I saw how high we had gone it startled me half to death. I
wrapped my arms and legs around a branch and would have held my
grip forever had she not come to my rescue. But she gently
persuaded me to let go with her easy touch and soft voice, like a
big sister would her brother. She made me hold her hand and with
our other hand we felt the strength of the branches. There was no
risk of one of them breaking. I could open my eyes without fear.
And it was all better when we ate the mangos.

It was fun, and I wasn’t
afraid anymore; instead, a little embarrassed from being such a
sissy-freak. But she didn’t jeer at me; didn’t even make mention of
it, just passed it by with sweetness, because to her it wasn’t as
silly as it was to me. I wanted to reclaim my manhood and make sure
I beat her, on the way down, but it wasn’t easy. She wasn’t sure
what I was trying to do: swinging so wildly and jumping from the
last branch about ten feet. She didn’t realize it was a competition
until I tried racing her, and then she passed me; splashing me with
the ocean water, the whole way back to her house.

We spent a little while with
her family and then we were hungry again. I guess fruit never
really fills you once you’ve tried meat.

Higinia offered to cook, but
instead we went alone to a little kitchen, not far from my room.
They were serving crab, freshly caught that morning, and it was
very good. I got more than my fill and she thought it was very
funny that I ate like a pig. I had forgotten all about table
manners and went out on a limb. It was the inner animal in me that
had forced this behavior, when finally given the chance to eat
without a fork. And since on the island people hardly ever used
forks, it was an opportune excuse for this transformation to occur.
When I finally realized what a pig I’d become, it was too late
because I had crab crumbs all over.

Our nice meal was
interrupted by a phone call. The owner of the little place brought
the phone, on a long line, to our table. There were only five other
couples, besides us, eating there, so it wasn’t really a large
place. There were no sophisticated waiters, just a phone on the
table and an “It’s for you, don.”

That was odd, I thought. How
could anyone calling know where I was, especially since I wasn’t at
that restaurant all day? It was the strangest of things. Of course,
whoever was calling had to want to ruin my day, so I tried to shoo
off the phone, waving my hands insistently at the owner, but he
didn’t catch on for a long time. Finally, he got the idea and tried
his round at a very bad lie, but whoever it was wasn’t stupid and
again the owner passed the phone to me. “They insist, Mr. Finch.”
So I took it.

“
Hello.” A minute and a
half passed by, as my face went from annoyed to serious to sad and
then a combination of both sad and mad. It was my boss. He had
finally got a hold of me after several tries. The fact was that the
only three phones on the island, other than the airport phones,
were owned: one by the butcher, the second by a very rich lady, and
this one here, (and who knows why this little kitchen had one). My
boss had already been trying the airport and the other phones for
several days.

He finally got word from the
butcher, who said he had seen me and that I lived with Blanca, but
that she didn’t have a phone, so he promised that he would get word
to me next time he saw Blanca. I hadn’t seen much of Blanca for a
week, so if the message got to her at all, it would be some time
before it got to me. Thus it was by mere coincidence (if there is
such a thing, because I don’t believe in coincidences), that he
tried the lines again and happened to find me at one of them. Of
course it was bad news he had to administer.

No one had died, but I was
late on a deadline for a yearly article that I was supposed to
write. It was a very important story for the paper and one that I
was assigned to every year. Since my vacation had gone over for as
long as it did, I now had only days to finish the assignment. Mr.
Freior was very angry and impatient over the phone, asking me how
much longer it could possibly take to arrange my business and get
back on the job. If we didn’t get this annual report printed, while
the other papers did, it could cost our paper millions of dollars
in dropped subscriptions.

To clarify the predicament
properly, I have to explain that our paper had bought exclusive
rights to cover a story, that we’d been doing every year, on
trading agreements between a stock company from California and a
New York firm. These negotiations were supposed to be the pivot
point for increases or decreases in a number of stocks dealing with
agricultural products from California; of which businessmen from
around the world relied highly for their calculations.

Although those types of
negotiations took place every year and around the same time, it was
by mere luck that our newspaper had managed to deal a sole-coverage
on the event. We were supposed to interview the president of the
company, in California, in relation to the possible market value
that the product was to have in the next few months. And that’s
where I came in... I was the reporter who was supposed to interview
and write the story; and I had known it since the exclusive. Now,
my stay on the island was about to jeopardize the interview and if
we didn’t print those results, many people were going to be very
upset. It had been our campaign for the last four months, and we
had spent millions of dollars advertising about our exclusive
coverage of the story, with much success over our
competition.

But further, if we didn’t
print the damn thing, someone had to – and we would most likely
lose all exclusive rights to it. It was very nerve racking, for I
knew there was nothing to be done. I had to go back and I had to go
right now! My angry boss asked me when I’d leave and I said
“tomorrow,” to which he answered, “You have three days, or you’re
fired!” Then in anger he must have pulled the phone from the wall
because I heard a loud noise and then the line was dead.

My face became very long.
Noelia asked me what was wrong, but it was useless for me to try to
explain. Everything was amiss and where could I start? How could I
explain corporate demand to her? She wouldn’t understand and most
likely would get mad. But what could I do? I had to go, or I’d lose
my job. She didn’t like it a bit, as I thought, but I couldn’t
transfer my brain over to hers; she’d have to just trust and try to
understand. I was too stressed to fight again; but she didn’t want
to.

She was upset, and tried to
make me give her a good explanation as to what could be so
important that it called for me to go that very hour. I couldn’t
give her one, so she kept harassing. It must have stressed her, as
it did me. I think the only thing that calmed her was that she
could see I also didn’t want to go. Because of that, she lessened
the tension, even when I became more apprehensive to her. Without a
doubt my stress was at its peak. It threw my mind into a tumult, on
the extreme of foreboding, making me unsure of how to cope with all
of it, as if a wrench had been thrown into my mind – straight into
its gears.

There was no time to waste.
She went with me, but her attempts to stop me were in vain. My mind
was a dark tunnel. She cried some, because I was a little rude, but
in spite of everything she stayed very sane and tried to brace my
instability with her strength. The first place to go was the hotel.
Blanca had to know, and that didn’t help my situation at all, once
we got there.

In all decency, I couldn’t
just leave; but her reaction was so expectantly irritating that it
sent me further down the dementia-drain so that I could no longer
deal with it. I think I was even ruder to Blanca than I’d been to
Noelia. When we left, Blanca sat crying as if I’d told her that her
firstborn was dead. They were the loudest wails I’d ever heard. I
didn’t even bother going through the formality of exchanging
addresses and promising to write. I just left (an ungrateful slob).
Noelia tried excusing me to her, but it was of no comfort. To
Blanca, I had betrayed and abandoned; and Noelia didn’t think I
should be so heartless, but I wasn’t in the mind for
calmness.

The most unpleasant part was
done and there was still plenty of time to extricate myself from
the island and return to duty. I could send for Noelia after
arriving in the States and then make all the arrangements in their
proper order. The taxi-man lived down the street from Blanca, so we
went there next and I hailed him to take me to the airport. He
wasn’t happy about having to leave his asado (BBQ). We had caught
him during the siesta, so we practically had to drag him out before
he finally said he would take us. It was amazing to me that a man
as he would not jump at the opportunity to get some cash from a
North American. Of course we had infringed upon the sacred
“siesta-time,” which was in essence an unwritten law on the
island.